Volume 29 - Number 3
June 2002 - Online Newsletter

MMS Website

President's Message

Something New...

Foray Schedule for Summer & Fall 2002

Fungi From Spring Meetings

Morel Poetry

Paul Bunyan Corner

Morels In The News

Morels in 2002

Recipe - Ragout of Peas and Morels

MMS Officers

Newsletter Archive

Morels in 2002

After the mild winter, March felt like the winter has just begun. April wasn’t much gentler either. With such beginnings it was inevitable that the morels would be late. 

The signs of morel fruiting, blooming of the lilacs and the showy orchis, the squirrel’s ear sized leaves on the oaks, the blooms on the crab apple were all delayed. Yet, we were out there, looking, our hopes bolstered every time someone found just a tiny immature specimen.

On May 13th, the meeting at REI, Maxine Bethke brought a collection of early morels consisting of M. semilibra, Verpa conica, V. bohemica and a nice group of grayish colored "black morels". On the following day Meadow Muska called from southern Iowa, reporting that, while traveling down there, she noticed that the lilacs were just starting to bloom.

I usually go morel hunting on Mothers’ Day. I was busy, and it was not promising. The crabapple in the backyard was barely showing its flower buds. I went, instead, a week later, on the 18th, and discovered a nice spread under a dead elm, but they were all tiny, barely above ground. I left them there with the intention of returning later. Farther up the trail, in a warmer spot, I found a few mature specimens, but there too, others were too small to pick. I like my morels fully grown, expanded, large, with mature spores, which in my opinion, provide most of the flavor, and in this condition the morels have already had a chance to disperse some of their spores.

A dry period followed, and the small morels I left behind the previous week did not appear to have grown at all. Another dry week. By now we were approaching Memorial Day. Then it rained, rained heavily. Within 2 days the small morels were fully grown. A week later I went on a drive in my neighborhood, and seeing a dead elm, I looked under it. They were there, large as life, about a dozen of them. By this time I was on my way home, but having found those morels made me turn a corner where I seldom do. There too I saw a dead elm. The undergrowth was thick, and I crouched to see among the shrubbery. At first, nothing. Then I noticed one large one. It was a mature, very gray Morchella esculenta. There were more,many more, but it took a long time to see them all. With their dark color they blended in with their surrounding as if they were not there at all.

Some people think that 2002 was a bad year for morel, but rumors have it that one of our members collected over 2000, and reports in the hundreds are not uncommon. Also, there were more than the usual chance encounters with morels. I frequently receive calls from people (non-members) to have the identification of their morels verified, They found them just walking on a trail or while mowing the lawn.

Anna Gerenday