Agaricus subrufescens
species of mushroom
Agaricus subrufescens (syn. Agaricus blazei, A. brasiliensis or A. rufotegulis) is a species of fungus, commonly known as the almond mushroom. It is edible for most people, with a somewhat sweet taste and a fragrance of almonds.
Taxonomy
Agaricus subrufescens was first described by the American botanist Charles Horton Peck in 1893. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was cultivated for the table in the eastern United States. It was discovered again in Brazil during the 1970s, and misidentified as Agaricus blazei Murrill, a species originally described from Florida. It was soon marketed for its purported medicinal properties under various names, including ABM (for Agaricus blazei Murrill), cogumelo do sol (mushroom of the sun), cogumelo de Deus (mushroom of God), cogumelo de vida (mushroom of life), himematsutake, royal sun agaricus, Mandelpilz, and almond mushroom.
In 2002, Didukh and Wasser correctly rejected the name A. blazei for this species, but called the Brazilian fungus A. brasiliensis, a name that had already been used for a different species, Agaricus brasiliensis Fr. (1830). Richard Kerrigan undertook genetic and interfertility testing on several fungal strains, and showed that samples of the Brazilian strains called A. blazei and A. brasiliensis were genetically similar to, and interfertile with, North American populations of Agaricus subrufescens.
“Agaricus subrufescens” enters the record as species of mushroom. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Agaricus, subrufescens and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Agaricus subrufescens” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Agaricus, subrufescens and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 21, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q764068. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1893, 2002 and 1830.
Scientific names, classifications and consensus can change while older terminology persists in catalogues and historical literature. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Agaricus subrufescens” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.