Morel Mushrooms

Image Gallery Fun to find and a treat to eat, it's hard to beat morel mushrooms. DAVID CAVAGNARO

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Mushroom hunting can be a wonderful, healthy outdoor experience to share with family and friends. But the thrill of the hunt is only half the enjoyment. Its deliciously earthy, nutty, steak-like flavor makes the morel mushroom the No. 1 target of wild mushroom hunters across North America.

The two dozen choicest wild mushrooms on this continent have a range of flavors — light, sweet apricot (chanterelle), eggplant (puffball), meat like (several) — but the morel is king. Thousands of people scour fields and forests annually in North America in search of morels.

Not only is it the best-tasting, the morel is also the easiest to identify and safest to eat of all wild mushrooms. Generally, if you find a sponge-like protuberance, 1 to 6 inches tall pushing skyward among fallen forest leaves and grasses on spring days between 60 and 80 degrees, you're in luck. The stems and caps of morels are hollow, and the stem is attached at the base of the cap. It makes a great first mushroom to learn because its spongy shape is so distinctive and easy to identify.

When and Where

Morels appear throughout the continent in spring. Trees are just beginning to bud, so relatively unfiltered sunlight warms the earth directly. This trigge rs the appearance of a number of wildflowers: trillium, phlox, trout lily, Dutchman's breeches, violets, wild strawberries and many more. These flowers, along with temperature, are indicators of when to look for morels.

The "where" isn't quite as simple. Where the spores fall, cross pollinate and germinate is basically where morels will grow — after a five-year cycle of nutrient-gathering and storage. Black morels (which appear first) tend to be more exclusively in hardwood forests, but not around any particular type of tree. Finding them is often like a connect-the-dots game. When you find one, be still and look nearby. When the spores that created the morel you just picked were jettisoned years ago, there likely was a wind pattern that blew the spores in a particular path. There may have been a nutrient source or environment (soil type, moisture, pH, etc.) that was conducive for growth. Look for the patterns.

White morels, which appear later than the blacks Forests, fields, orchards, fence rows, hedgerows, islands, railroad tracks, floodplain's and grown-over strip mines are just some of the places the white and giant morels can be found. Unlike the blacks, the whites sometimes tend to congregate around certain types of tree usually ones that are in some stage of dying. Elm, ash, sycamore, cottonwood. Bigger, older trees. As the trees die the root systems break down and are desirable and readily available food sources for morels. This availability of nutrients may allow the growth cycle to advance, shortening the five-year cycle. Good results occasionally can be found in consecutive years in the same location.

What to Wear, What to Bring

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print