This has certainly been a year for Morels at Blue Jay Barrens. During a recent outing, I found many in this aged condition. Hopefully, the spores will be well distributed and result in abundant mushrooms in the future.
All my finds were of individual specimens. The two nearest together were still separated by over 100 feet. I don’t believe that mushrooms spaced at this distance would qualify as a patch.
This is the type of area that produced the Morels. All were found on steep slopes with shallow, super dry soil. The only trees in the area were Eastern Red Cedar. This is not the typical Morel location described in the literature. I suppose the harsh conditions would explain why the Morels never showed up in abundance.
Most of those I found were old, but I did find a couple of recently emerged specimens. This Morel was found beneath a cedar in a prairie opening a little more than a quarter acre in size. This one had a darker color than the ones I found a couple of weeks ago.
I found these growing in a pine thicket beside the house. They have a distinctly different pattern coloration than those I found before, so I did some research to discover if they might be a different species. My research was inconclusive. Apparently, mycologists have differing opinions on speciation within the morels and the taxonomy varies considerably between different expert views. I think I’ll just take a naïve approach and adopt the belief that differing shape, coloration and emergence times indicates two different species.
This has certainly been a year for Morels at Blue Jay Barrens. During a recent outing, I found many in this aged condition. Hopefully, the spores will be well distributed and result in abundant mushrooms in the future.
All my finds were of individual specimens. The two nearest together were still separated by over 100 feet. I don’t believe that mushrooms spaced at this distance would qualify as a patch.
This is the type of area that produced the Morels. All were found on steep slopes with shallow, super dry soil. The only trees in the area were Eastern Red Cedar. This is not the typical Morel location described in the literature. I suppose the harsh conditions would explain why the Morels never showed up in abundance.
Most of those I found were old, but I did find a couple of recently emerged specimens. This Morel was found beneath a cedar in a prairie opening a little more than a quarter acre in size. This one had a darker color than the ones I found a couple of weeks ago.
I found these growing in a pine thicket beside the house. They have a distinctly different pattern coloration than those I found before, so I did some research to discover if they might be a different species. My research was inconclusive. Apparently, mycologists have differing opinions on speciation within the morels and the taxonomy varies considerably between different expert views. I think I’ll just take a naïve approach and adopt the belief that differing shape, coloration and emergence times indicates two different species.
I find that they taste different too. Doing my part to mangle a quote -- A morel by any other name would taste as sweet ...
ReplyDeleteHi, Wilma. I've also noticed a difference in taste and texture, but they're all good.
ReplyDeleteDespite being a big fan of mushrooms I haven't found any morels here yet but I just love the way they look. As far as I can guess they need some special conditions to grow, don't they?
ReplyDeleteHi, Alexandra. I've seen morels in a lot of different habitats and am not really sure exactly what it is that makes a good morel site. I hope you do find some, because they are really neat to meet in person.
ReplyDelete