More Ls

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.

Morels

The sight of a Yellow Morel can certainly cause some excitement. I’ve seen people grab these highly prized edible mushrooms right out from in front of someone’s camera lens. I call it a mushroom because I’ve been told that this gem is too classy to be referred to as a fungus.

I don’t find many morels at Blue Jay Barrens. Most of my encounters are with single individuals that I leave in place to spread their spores to the wind. In 25 years there have only been two or three times that I’ve found enough mushrooms to make a collection worthwhile.

This year, I found in one place more Yellow Morels than I have ever found before in an entire season. This is the first time I’ve ever been able to take a photo of multiple mushrooms in one location. In total, there were about 40 morels in an area 30 feet across.

The site of the find was within the root zone of an old apple tree that died a few years ago. I’ve read that apples are one of many trees which may have an association with morels. The Tuliptree is said to be the most like species to have morels growing beneath its canopy. Most of my finds have been beneath Eastern Red Cedars growing in the barrens. I’ve always thought that was a rough place for mushrooms to be growing.

I learned years ago that the official system of measure for morel harvests is the Bread Sack, but I’m not sure if a full sack is one that’s filled completely to the top or just filled to the volume of a loaf of bread. I’m going to estimate that I collected a half bread sack worth of mushrooms, even though I used a half gallon container instead of a sack. My wife loves morels and I love my wife, so I prepared the whole batch for her dining pleasure. I did leave a few of the bug chewed morels under the tree to spread spores, just in case it makes a difference to future populations.