How to Identify Half-Free Morel Mushrooms
Hunting wild mushrooms can be fun, and there’s a certain joy in gathering something yourself and preparing a meal from it. However, there are also two mushroom hunter sayings that always bear repeating, and those are “There are old mushroom hunters and bold mushroom hunters, but there are no old, bold mushroom hunters,” and “When in doubt, throw it out.” Wild mushrooms can be lethally poisonous, so be sure of you’ve correctly identified your mushroom before eating it. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Hunt for half-free morels in the spring. They can grow on either living or decomposing hardwoods. Occasionally they’ll live on conifers, but this is rarer.
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Inspect the cap. Mature half-free morels have a cap that is typically conical and pointed, about .5 to 1.5 inches wide and looks small for the size of the stem. The cap is pitted and ridged, and the cap’s bottom isn’t connected to the stem, but hangs down like a skirt. This can be important in identifying the species. The cap ranges from yellow to dark brown, but the brown coloring of a mature half-free morel cap leans more toward black or yellow in hue. If the cap you’re looking at leans toward a red hue, remember the saying, “If it’s reddish, you could be deadish.”
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Examine the stem. The stem of half-free morel is up to 4 inches tall and white or slightly yellow-white in color. The stem may be smooth, but sometimes has a granulated texture of small bumps.
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Take a spore print. You do this by pressing a piece of black construction paper to the underside of the cap. Mushrooms reproduce by spores and the color of the spores is important in distinguishing among species. The spores should stick to the construction paper. Half-free morel spores can be yellowish, orange-ish or cream-colored.
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Pick the mushroom and collect it if the previous steps have checked out. Once you get home, cut all your mushrooms in half height-wise. Morels are completely hollow, so if there is a cotton-like fiber in the stem, or if only some sections of the stem that are hollow, throw the mushroom out. Check also that the base of the cap is not connected to the stem. Half-free morels get their name because approximately half the cap is unconnected to the stem and hangs down around it. If this isn’t true of your mushrooms, throw them out.
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Tips & Warnings
Study pictures of half-free morels before you go out hunting them.
Research Verpa bohemica and Gyromitra esculenta. These species of mushroom can be mistaken for the half-free morel.
False morels can be lethal even to healthy adults.
Morels should be completely cooked before being eaten. Eating raw morels can make you sick.
References
- Photo Credit The mushroom morel image by Ludmila Galchenkova from Fotolia.com
