Pulutukwe

Identity and naming

Pulutukwe is the local name used by the Patamona Amerindians for Amanita perphaea. The species was described by Simmons, Henkel and Bas in 2002 from a holotype collected near Kurutuik Falls in the Pakaraima Mountains. The catalogue treats the name as a research label rather than a reconciled accepted name, and this page does not establish current taxonomy.

The genus Amanita includes some of the most toxic mushrooms known, and several edible species are hard to tell apart from deadly ones by appearance. A Patamona name for one species therefore identifies a food tradition in one place. It does not identify other specimens, other Amanitas or the same species elsewhere.

Food use among the Patamona

Henkel and colleagues reported in 2004 that the Patamona of the rain-forested Pakaraima Mountains use a number of wild mushrooms as food, most of them undescribed species. Pulutukwe is recorded as one of the valued foods of the Patamona. The counts differ between sources: the 2004 paper's abstract gives eleven species, and a later review of the same study cites seventeen taxa.

A mushroom-society page describes pulutukwe as gathered mainly by men and given to their wives as a gift, wrapped in leaves. The same page notes that women are the usual mushroom gatherers in the community. The sources do not give a recipe, a cooking method, a storage method or a quantity, so none is recorded here.

Habitat and ecology

The catalogue places the species in Dicymbe forest, and records it as ectomycorrhizal, meaning it forms a partnership with the roots of forest trees. It is recorded as a wild fungus. The sources read for this page give no fruiting season and no locality beyond the Pakaraima Mountains.

Safety and identification

Safety wording: this page describes what the sources record. It is not an identification guide and it gives no verdict that any Amanita is safe to eat. The catalogue states that Amanita includes deadly poisonous species and that this food tradition cannot identify other specimens.

The edibility of pulutukwe rests on ethnomycological reports from the Patamona. No toxicity testing or clinical data for this species is given in the sources read. Anyone who finds an Amanita must have it identified by a qualified mycologist before eating it, and this page is not a basis for doing so.