Details about map content are available here Click on the map dots to view record details.
Introduction
The genus Morchella (morels) is undergoing taxonomic revision and further study. This means that most names presently used for this group are inaccurate. We present morels in E-Flora, however, to show that this element of the fungi flora is present in British Columbia. Morchella elata, for example, really represents a group of related Black Morels. There is also a group of Blond Morels and a small group of Half-free Morels. DNA studies have shown the two morels that look identical in the field and have been called Morchella elata, for example, can actually be one of about four different species. To confound matters, Morels that look very different from each other have turned out to be the same species when their DNA was examined. There are only a few species of morels that can be identified based on field and microscopic studies. To read more, visit Michael Kuo's website.
Note Author: Michael Beug
Species Information
Summary: {See also Morels Table.} Morchella populiphila has the general appearance of more common morels but distinguished by the attachment of the head when cut lengthwise: the other morels in the Pacific Northwest have heads that are intergrown with the stem for most of the height of the cap, while Morchella populiphila has the lower part of the cap (often as much as half of it) free of the stem. (Verpa species have a cap that is free of the cap except right at the top of the stem.) It has mostly found under Populus trichocarpa om river bottoms in spring, but has been documented by molecular means from a residential yard and a city park without Populus present. This morel has been known in North America as Morchella semilibera DC: Fr., but the North American taxa have been separated based on molecular study, (Kuo(6)). The description below is derived from Kuo(6) except where specified.
Collections were examined from OR, CA, and NV (Kuo(6)) and Spain (Richard(1)). Morchella ''semilibera'' has been found also in ID, (Arora), WA (M. Beug, pers. comm.), and a collection from BC is deposited at University of British Columbia.
Cap: 2-5cm across at widest point, 2-5cm high, (whole fruitbody 4-15cm high), broadly to narrowly conic, "pitted and ridged, with 12-20 primary vertical ridges and infrequent shorter, secondary vertical ridges and transecting horizontal ridges", attached in a skirt-like manner to stem, roughly halfway from the top of the cap to its bottom, with a sinus [trough between head and stem] 1-2.5cm deep, ridges when young up to 0.1cm wide "and flat with sharp edges" but often rounded, sharp or eroded when old, pits vertically elongated; ridges "yellowish brown to honey brown when young, darkening to brown, dark brown or black with maturity", pits "whitish to pale brown when immature, becoming brownish to yellowish or grayish brown at maturity"; ridges and pits both bald
Flesh: 0.1-0.2cm thick in hollow cap, sometimes chambered or layered near stem base, fragile; whitish to watery tan
Underside: trough between head and stem 1-2.5cm deep; sterile inner surface whitish to brownish, mealy
Stem: 2.5-11cm x 1-5cm, more or less equal or widening downward, often hidden by cap when young but lengthening dramatically, fragile, "in warm, wet conditions sometimes becoming inflated, especially near the base"; "white to whitish or watery brownish"; occasionally nearly bald "but more commonly mealy with whitish granules that sometimes darken to brownish or brown"
Microscopic: spores 20-25(29) x 12-16(18) microns, elliptic, smooth, contents homogeneous; asci 8-spored, 225-325 x 15-22.5 microns, cylindric, colorless; paraphyses 150-275 x 7-15 microns, cylindric with subclavate, clavate or subclavate tips, colorless in 2% KOH, septate; elements on sterile ridges 100-175 x 10-25 microns, septate, "tightly packed in an even layer", brownish in 2% KOH, terminal cell "broadly clavate to sub-rectangular with a flattened to broadly rounded apex"
Spore Deposit: bright yellowish orange
Habitat / Range
under Populus trichocarpa (Black Cottonwood) in river bottoms, March and April, (Kuo(6)), collected where Populus was not present, from a residential yard and a city park in Pullman, WA, (McCotter)
Similar Species
Morchella punctipes is similar but appears in eastern hardwood forests, especially those containing Fagus americana (American Beech), Liriodendron tulipifera (Yellow-poplar), and Ulmus americana (American Elm), (collections from IL, MI, MO, PA, and VA), (Kuo(6)); Morchella populina occurs in QC, and the northwest and west of the United States, and is found under Populus, but it has a similar appearance to Morchella esculenta (Clowez).
