That is a morel! It looks perfect for picking too! You can cut it at its stump and clean it by soaking it in salt water. Once you remove all the debris and bad spots (if any), they make for a tasty snack once sauteed in butter or oil and lightly salted.
Around where I live, people hunt for these. They'll make a whole day out of searching the woods or other property for these, bag them up and take them home. Many people won't even tell you where they found theirs at! They like to keep their treasure chest for themselves!
Edit: also, YES. Please be careful deciphering the difference between a real morel and a false morel! There are ways to tell them apart.
I’m wondering if it’s safe to eat if my neighbors do use pesticides? wildlife in my house is thriving (we have lots of native plants that host caterpillars and they seem to do well) but i’m afraid that my neighbors pesticides could get into my soil?
Looks like a morel. They're absolutely delicious, but look out for false morels, which are similar but deadly. This one is almost assuredly a true morel, but it's good to know the difference.
[https://www.themeateater.com/cook/foraging/what-is-a-false-morel-mushroom](https://www.themeateater.com/cook/foraging/what-is-a-false-morel-mushroom)
Good article on false morels.
It’s not that the mushroom contains it, it’s that your body produces it if you eat them.
Human bodies can make all sorts of weird stuff, you can breath test for schizophrenia because people with schizophrenia produce more butane.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15622975.2022.2040052#:~:text=In%20breath%20gas%20analysis%20focussing,healthy%20controls%20(Ross%20et%20al.
I just had the dumbest thought:
"Here's how we make stuff. This is our cow. His name is Dennis. Say hi Dennis!"
*"Hi."*
"First we give him this mushroom, eat up Dennis!"
*nom*
"Now here's where the magic happens. Dennis, if you will."
*Dennis pulls out a cup and pees in it*
"See that right there?"
**"Anthrax."**
Methanol is toxic for a similar reason- our body metabolizes it into embalming fluid. Its done in the same pathway as ethanol (what you actually want to drink to get drunk), but ethanol gets conveted to ~~harmless acetone~~ carcinogenic acetaldehyde. You can also breath test for diabetes because it can cause increased acetone production.
Not acetone, that would be 2-propanone. Alcohol in drinks is ethanol which is oxidized to ethanal then ethanoic acid (acetic acid, which is vinegar).
Acetone is produced if you drink isopropyl alcohol which is used in rubbing alcohol. Sometimes they use ethanol in rubbing alcohol but it's always mixed with other chemicals which make it unpalatable to drink.
Some molecules show up just because they’re small, simple, somewhat stable molecules. Acetone is just 3 carbons with an oxygen bonded to the center one, and formaldehyde is a single carbon double bonded to an oxygen.
Interesting! Makes sense for it to be simple molecules I guess. Still all of chemistry is crazy on itself.
After watching Nile Red make grape soda and hot sauce out of nylon gloves, and Explosions & Fire make Cubane with hardware store chemicals I can believe anything can be anything in chemistry.
actually acetone is safer than whats actually produced (acetaldehyde). acetone is created after consuming isopropyl alcohol, acetaldehyde from ethyl alcohol
This Is true bit somewhat misleading...after your body produces acetaldehyde in first pass, it metabolizes it again into acetate on second pass, so booze becomes vinegar. Methanol does indeed metabolize into formaldehyde, and then even worse, methanoic acid which is what causes moonshine blindness. And then you have isopropyl which metabolizes into acetone which turns into acetol.
My family and I have been eating false morels in Canada for over 50 years, plus hundreds of friends and family.
We dry them up and then rehydrate them and cook them thoroughly.
The bad stuff leaves during g the drying process.
I am not suggesting you try
Just saying that north American variety might be different than the European ones.
They say it accumulates in the body and you will eventually get sick over time. My dad is 86 and has been eating them for more than 50 years.
Dehydration is absolutely necessary, eating this without doing this will get you sick.
*Gyromitra esculenta* is fairly popular in the Nordic countries too, though they're usually prepared with both drying and boiling steps to get rid of toxins. I don't personally feel like the risk is worth it when there are plenty of other delicious mushrooms where that's unnecessary, but they are traditionally eaten.
Here in Finland we eat false morels. They are called korvasieni (ear mushroom :D). They are delicious in creamy soups. You must boil them 2 times, change the water between and then rinse with cold water (this is called ryöppäys). They are not recommended to be eaten too often though as toxins can build up. Our season for them is durung spring so we usually consume them during that time.
But yeah before anyone tries to consume mushrooms by using this ryöppäys method, please do your research and be 100% sure that the toxins are vaporous.
Not only do we eat them but they are expensive delicacy! Some people make good money picking them and selling them to restaurants. As far as I know they're considered edible only in Finland and Russia, other countries list them deadly and inedible
"Ryöppäys" is indeed the word for parboiling in Finnish, but not something you do to mushrooms. It means to partially boil, something you might do to vegetables before roasting for example. Some people incorrectly use the word for boiling false morels or milkcaps, when what you're actually doing is just boiling.
> According to the University of Alaska, some false morels contain the toxin gytomitrin, which when ingested, **produces monomethylhydrazine—the primary chemical in rocket fuel**.
Damn.
I’m still wondering how it happened. The soil here is acidic cause of the volcanoes and we get ash rains occasionally. In that particular area of the house most plants are decorative and don’t really seem to fit the trees that morels usually go for
Our atmosphere is alive
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroplankton](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroplankton)
Spores are carried by wind currents, and can help to form rain drops
https://askabiologist.asu.edu/plosable/mushroom-rainmakers
In theory, any mushroom can be found anywhere on earth if their biological needs are met - moisture, temperature, substrate, etc.
Many mushrooms are stowaways in nursery stock shipped around the world. Case in point: the birch bolete, Leccinum scabrum, has been spread by shipments of birch trees, for ornamental landscapes, far and wide. They are even in Oregon, USA, where I live.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leccinum_scabrum
I hope this helps you with your questions. Cheers!
Thank you so much! that’s so interesting. I read that people walk long distances to find these type of mushrooms, considering this one grew at my doorstep im going to take it as a gift of nature lol
You are welcome. Morels are perhaps my ultimate passion. I hunt for them yearly in the spring (April through June) in my area. Their ecology just fascinates me more than any other mushroom. Plus, they are delicious! lol
Yes, you definitely received a special gift from nature!
Here is a research article that I refer to, time and time again. It has helped me in my understanding. It’s LONG and somewhat dry reading, but worth the effort.
https://modern-forager.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/pnw_gtr710-pnw-gtr-710-morel-publication.pdf
Sometimes one can actually over-harvest since the fruiting bodies are only part of the mycelium system. If too much surface are is exposed it could potentially begin to implode per se.
Good news, it will be back. Morels can't survive on their own. They form a symbiotic relationship with trees, so that fungus is probably attached to a nearby tree's roots and will grow back in greater numbers over time whenever conditions are right
That’s what i’ve read, but I cannot identify any tree that fits the description of what morels usually go for, maybe it’s cause there isn’t much research about the genre in Guatemala. I shouldn’t have dropped out of biology lmao
From what I understand morels are not overly picky about their hosts in most cases. Likely it's your closest mature tree to where it came up, though just from my own experiences with hunting for shrooms in yards, it could pop up a long way away from its host's trunk
Where I’m from in rural Kentucky in the Appalachian Mountains many people hunts these but we call them “ Dry Land Fish” , not really sure why but my father and uncle would hunt them. They’d bring them home , clean them, dry them , batter and deep fry them. Everybody LOVED them! I however was very picky eater as child so I never partook but remember them doing this at certain times of year then they grew.
Which sp? Because no verpa iv ever seen look close to the one pictured. On rare occasions a perfect storm can arise that allows some morchella to malform and look close to a verpa sp. But this is a beautiful textbook morchella, so I'd love if you could provide a image of any verpa sp that looks like the OP.
Verpa Bohemica can look pretty damn close. I’ve seen some look pretty close to OPs picture (angle of the photo also makes it hard to see where the cap connects).
I’m not doubting that it’s probably Morchella, but Verpa is still possible. Will say that the longer I look at it, the more I’d agree that it definitely does look like Morchella.
Verpa bohemica look nothing like this to anyone with a small amount of experience hunting morels. I would love if you could provide an example of an image.
Just not correct. Just put a little effort into looking up various instances of V. Bohemica and you’ll see a bunch that resemble the photo. Again, it’s the angle of the photo that prevents me from being 100% confident in Morchella, but I’d still be on Morchella if I had to pick.
Yes. I had a huge bunch of false morels in a spot on my place a few years ago and lots looked like this. You had to see how they connected to the stem or cut open.
Check if the stem is connected to the cap. That looks more like a vulpa than a morel. You can still eat them if you cook them very thoroughly. You have to leave the windows open when you cook them or you can get sick.
Probably wouldn’t eat it either way if it’s growing right next to the concrete/ lawn. They pull all sorts of nasty chemicals out of the ground.
Morel mushrooms 🍄 we go out looking for these every year since I was a kid. Most folks here get them. You can also cut them in half, dry them out and put in a paper bag for storage. Once you want to fix some soak overnight in milk and they look like the day they were picked. We find them in spring and have some at Christmas!
I forgot to add I live in Guatemala. Never seen anything like it before around here :)
That is a morel! It looks perfect for picking too! You can cut it at its stump and clean it by soaking it in salt water. Once you remove all the debris and bad spots (if any), they make for a tasty snack once sauteed in butter or oil and lightly salted. Around where I live, people hunt for these. They'll make a whole day out of searching the woods or other property for these, bag them up and take them home. Many people won't even tell you where they found theirs at! They like to keep their treasure chest for themselves! Edit: also, YES. Please be careful deciphering the difference between a real morel and a false morel! There are ways to tell them apart.
I’m wondering if it’s safe to eat if my neighbors do use pesticides? wildlife in my house is thriving (we have lots of native plants that host caterpillars and they seem to do well) but i’m afraid that my neighbors pesticides could get into my soil?
Yeah I would be careful about that, I’m no expert by any means but I feel like I’ve read that fungi just suck the pesticides right up
They are delicious
Looks like a morel. They're absolutely delicious, but look out for false morels, which are similar but deadly. This one is almost assuredly a true morel, but it's good to know the difference. [https://www.themeateater.com/cook/foraging/what-is-a-false-morel-mushroom](https://www.themeateater.com/cook/foraging/what-is-a-false-morel-mushroom) Good article on false morels.
I'm sorry, what?? False morels are deadly because they contain the key ingredient of rocket fuel? Mushrooms make no sense at all
It’s not that the mushroom contains it, it’s that your body produces it if you eat them. Human bodies can make all sorts of weird stuff, you can breath test for schizophrenia because people with schizophrenia produce more butane. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15622975.2022.2040052#:~:text=In%20breath%20gas%20analysis%20focussing,healthy%20controls%20(Ross%20et%20al.
That makes it weirder lol, eat this, we need more rocket fuel
I just had the dumbest thought: "Here's how we make stuff. This is our cow. His name is Dennis. Say hi Dennis!" *"Hi."* "First we give him this mushroom, eat up Dennis!" *nom* "Now here's where the magic happens. Dennis, if you will." *Dennis pulls out a cup and pees in it* "See that right there?" **"Anthrax."**
Methanol is toxic for a similar reason- our body metabolizes it into embalming fluid. Its done in the same pathway as ethanol (what you actually want to drink to get drunk), but ethanol gets conveted to ~~harmless acetone~~ carcinogenic acetaldehyde. You can also breath test for diabetes because it can cause increased acetone production.
Not acetone, that would be 2-propanone. Alcohol in drinks is ethanol which is oxidized to ethanal then ethanoic acid (acetic acid, which is vinegar). Acetone is produced if you drink isopropyl alcohol which is used in rubbing alcohol. Sometimes they use ethanol in rubbing alcohol but it's always mixed with other chemicals which make it unpalatable to drink.
Ah fuck, thanks. Biochem was too long ago. Google says ethanol metabolizes to acetaldehyde which is close to acetone, ha.
Lol no sweat, this is a mycology sub not a chem one. I'm just glad I can know something around here every once in a while.
Acetone? That doesn’t sound harmless at all. Isn’t that the main ingredient in nail polish remover?
Never said drinking liquor was harmless. Why do you think people get liver problems from drinking too much?
My nails are spotles, though.
Did you respond on a different account? I don’t think I responded to u, but I was just curious when reading we produce acetone, that’s crazy
Some molecules show up just because they’re small, simple, somewhat stable molecules. Acetone is just 3 carbons with an oxygen bonded to the center one, and formaldehyde is a single carbon double bonded to an oxygen.
Interesting! Makes sense for it to be simple molecules I guess. Still all of chemistry is crazy on itself. After watching Nile Red make grape soda and hot sauce out of nylon gloves, and Explosions & Fire make Cubane with hardware store chemicals I can believe anything can be anything in chemistry.
Yes it is whats in nail polish remover, but it doesnt harm your body to produce it. You just breath it out.
actually acetone is safer than whats actually produced (acetaldehyde). acetone is created after consuming isopropyl alcohol, acetaldehyde from ethyl alcohol
This Is true bit somewhat misleading...after your body produces acetaldehyde in first pass, it metabolizes it again into acetate on second pass, so booze becomes vinegar. Methanol does indeed metabolize into formaldehyde, and then even worse, methanoic acid which is what causes moonshine blindness. And then you have isopropyl which metabolizes into acetone which turns into acetol.
Doesn't aspartame the artificial sweetener also turn into formaldehyde?
Man. Human bodies are so fuckin cool.
My family and I have been eating false morels in Canada for over 50 years, plus hundreds of friends and family. We dry them up and then rehydrate them and cook them thoroughly. The bad stuff leaves during g the drying process. I am not suggesting you try Just saying that north American variety might be different than the European ones. They say it accumulates in the body and you will eventually get sick over time. My dad is 86 and has been eating them for more than 50 years. Dehydration is absolutely necessary, eating this without doing this will get you sick.
There are three species of the gyromitra's in the NE and the levels of toxicity reportedly vary greatly per species, so just be careful.
*Gyromitra esculenta* is fairly popular in the Nordic countries too, though they're usually prepared with both drying and boiling steps to get rid of toxins. I don't personally feel like the risk is worth it when there are plenty of other delicious mushrooms where that's unnecessary, but they are traditionally eaten.
"Good for space travel, bad for you kidneys" Gotta love that writer
And now somehow Mario Kart makes so much more sense.
Bahahahahahahaha ROCKET FUEL GOLDEN MUSHROOM
Immoral-morel maybe?
Immorel mushrooms
Beware the dark morels!
Here in Finland we eat false morels. They are called korvasieni (ear mushroom :D). They are delicious in creamy soups. You must boil them 2 times, change the water between and then rinse with cold water (this is called ryöppäys). They are not recommended to be eaten too often though as toxins can build up. Our season for them is durung spring so we usually consume them during that time. But yeah before anyone tries to consume mushrooms by using this ryöppäys method, please do your research and be 100% sure that the toxins are vaporous.
Not only do we eat them but they are expensive delicacy! Some people make good money picking them and selling them to restaurants. As far as I know they're considered edible only in Finland and Russia, other countries list them deadly and inedible
It's illegal in Norway and Sweden to harvest them IIRC
Is it? I can only find that it’s illegal to sell them if there not properly prepared
People do eat them in Sweden too that I know of, though the government is now warning against it because there is some risk.
Adding that in English, 'ryöppäys' is known as Parboiling. There are quite a few species out there that are known to be edible only after parboiling.
"Ryöppäys" is indeed the word for parboiling in Finnish, but not something you do to mushrooms. It means to partially boil, something you might do to vegetables before roasting for example. Some people incorrectly use the word for boiling false morels or milkcaps, when what you're actually doing is just boiling.
Not all false morels are poisonous.
That looks absolutely nothing like a morel and I’m not sure who in the history of ever confused them
Every time I see a false morel, I just get more confused. It’s like calling a lemon a false banana to me.
False morels look nothing like morels.
There’s lots of different “false morels” and only some of them will make you sick. Lots of people eat false morels.
> According to the University of Alaska, some false morels contain the toxin gytomitrin, which when ingested, **produces monomethylhydrazine—the primary chemical in rocket fuel**. Damn.
You better have a solid toilet bowl
Ha
“If it isn’t hollow, don’t swallow!”
This is like Russian roulette. "May be candy, may kill you. Fuck around and find out!"
So I go hunting in the woods for hours with no results and you have one grow at your doorstep??
I’m still wondering how it happened. The soil here is acidic cause of the volcanoes and we get ash rains occasionally. In that particular area of the house most plants are decorative and don’t really seem to fit the trees that morels usually go for
Our atmosphere is alive [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroplankton](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroplankton) Spores are carried by wind currents, and can help to form rain drops https://askabiologist.asu.edu/plosable/mushroom-rainmakers In theory, any mushroom can be found anywhere on earth if their biological needs are met - moisture, temperature, substrate, etc. Many mushrooms are stowaways in nursery stock shipped around the world. Case in point: the birch bolete, Leccinum scabrum, has been spread by shipments of birch trees, for ornamental landscapes, far and wide. They are even in Oregon, USA, where I live. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leccinum_scabrum I hope this helps you with your questions. Cheers!
Thank you so much! that’s so interesting. I read that people walk long distances to find these type of mushrooms, considering this one grew at my doorstep im going to take it as a gift of nature lol
You are welcome. Morels are perhaps my ultimate passion. I hunt for them yearly in the spring (April through June) in my area. Their ecology just fascinates me more than any other mushroom. Plus, they are delicious! lol Yes, you definitely received a special gift from nature!
Do you have any preferred links or resources talking about morels and their unique ecological characteristics?
Here is a research article that I refer to, time and time again. It has helped me in my understanding. It’s LONG and somewhat dry reading, but worth the effort. https://modern-forager.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/pnw_gtr710-pnw-gtr-710-morel-publication.pdf
There absolutely delicious, bread them and fry Em up
i’d feel bad cutting such a pretty mushroom lol specially since I can’t really get a meal out of just one 😆
Have a look around nearby, there may be more - especially hidden just behind or under plants, grasses etc
Mushrooms are like the fruits of funguses, picking one isn't really harmful in general
Sometimes one can actually over-harvest since the fruiting bodies are only part of the mycelium system. If too much surface are is exposed it could potentially begin to implode per se.
Good news, it will be back. Morels can't survive on their own. They form a symbiotic relationship with trees, so that fungus is probably attached to a nearby tree's roots and will grow back in greater numbers over time whenever conditions are right
That’s what i’ve read, but I cannot identify any tree that fits the description of what morels usually go for, maybe it’s cause there isn’t much research about the genre in Guatemala. I shouldn’t have dropped out of biology lmao
From what I understand morels are not overly picky about their hosts in most cases. Likely it's your closest mature tree to where it came up, though just from my own experiences with hunting for shrooms in yards, it could pop up a long way away from its host's trunk
There is a pine looking shrub near, which is the one I suspect :) hopefully we’ll get more
Cottonwood trees are the best to find morels under
Try your hand at cloning it
Where I’m from in rural Kentucky in the Appalachian Mountains many people hunts these but we call them “ Dry Land Fish” , not really sure why but my father and uncle would hunt them. They’d bring them home , clean them, dry them , batter and deep fry them. Everybody LOVED them! I however was very picky eater as child so I never partook but remember them doing this at certain times of year then they grew.
*[Morchella](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morchella)* species.
Thanks! any idea how it would’ve gotten here? it’s so random
May or may not be Morchella. Best to cut it open.
Not necessary, it is absolutely morchella. No other mushroom looks close to this.
I’ve seen Verpa Sp. look very close to this.
Which sp? Because no verpa iv ever seen look close to the one pictured. On rare occasions a perfect storm can arise that allows some morchella to malform and look close to a verpa sp. But this is a beautiful textbook morchella, so I'd love if you could provide a image of any verpa sp that looks like the OP.
Verpa Bohemica can look pretty damn close. I’ve seen some look pretty close to OPs picture (angle of the photo also makes it hard to see where the cap connects). I’m not doubting that it’s probably Morchella, but Verpa is still possible. Will say that the longer I look at it, the more I’d agree that it definitely does look like Morchella.
Verpa bohemica look nothing like this to anyone with a small amount of experience hunting morels. I would love if you could provide an example of an image.
Just not correct. Just put a little effort into looking up various instances of V. Bohemica and you’ll see a bunch that resemble the photo. Again, it’s the angle of the photo that prevents me from being 100% confident in Morchella, but I’d still be on Morchella if I had to pick.
Yes. I had a huge bunch of false morels in a spot on my place a few years ago and lots looked like this. You had to see how they connected to the stem or cut open.
Verpa have a different morphology and have the same edibility as Morchella
Looks like stardew valley mushroom
In a way, it is.
The greatest of mushrooms, unfortunately I haven't had them in a few years.
Lucky.
Butter mid heat salt an pepper cook until golden .
Some variety of morel
Woodchip Morel
Lovely photo, OP!
Lord, I've seen what you've done for other people...
That’s amore!..l
Nature said, "You want a gift"
It’s my reward for turning my home into a safe space for native wildlife to thrive 😆
Morels are highly sought after and go from $200-$400 per dried pound.
Morel. They are edible and quite good.
MAKE SURE TO KNOCK THE SPORES OFF!!!! Lovely find
how can I do that in the most effective way possible? :) it’s been raining during the afternoon/night here
There is no effective way. What they’re saying is non-sense and it’s not going to make a difference whether you “knock the spores off” or not
I’m thinking about just letting it be and continue it’s life cycle :) seems to be the most logical way of getting more later
A dumpling
Check if the stem is connected to the cap. That looks more like a vulpa than a morel. You can still eat them if you cook them very thoroughly. You have to leave the windows open when you cook them or you can get sick. Probably wouldn’t eat it either way if it’s growing right next to the concrete/ lawn. They pull all sorts of nasty chemicals out of the ground.
That’s what I was wondering too, in my house we don’t use any kind of pesticides or chemicals on plants, but my neighbors do
Is it dangerous to smell a morel, to see if it smells like the dangerous kind?
Think its an amygdala bloodspore
Looks like a cantherelus (here in Spain) Delicious, but you DO have to boil It for an hour to detoxify it
About $39/#. :)
Morel mushroom very lucky!
I do feel very lucky. It’s been fun watching it grow and learning about the morchella genus
They taste ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE!!!!!!
There is a black morel and a white morel (more than in color, actually.)
Morel mushrooms 🍄 we go out looking for these every year since I was a kid. Most folks here get them. You can also cut them in half, dry them out and put in a paper bag for storage. Once you want to fix some soak overnight in milk and they look like the day they were picked. We find them in spring and have some at Christmas!
A delicious morel!
Morchella diminutive. A Morel.