Details about map content are available here Click on the map dots to view record details.
Species Information
Summary: {See also Morels Table.} Features of Morchella snyderi are a conic cap with longitudinally arranged ridges and a trough at the point of attachment to the stem, the cap with pale yellowish colors when young, but ridges becoming smoky brown to black, stem often prominently lacunose and ridged throughout most of development, stem surface prominently granulated, growth under conifers, and relatively large spores. According to Beug(3) the fungus "can have the coloring of a yellow morel, or can be gray, tan, reddish brown, or greenish" and the color of ridges "varies from only slightly darkening to jet-black in age". The description is derived from Kuo(6) except where noted.
Collections were examined from WA, OR, ID, CA, MT, (Kuo(6)), also in BC (M. Beug, pers. comm.)
Cap: 3-5cm across, 3.5-8cm high (whole fruitbody 6-14cm high), conic, pitted and ridged, "16-22 primary vertical ridges and frequent shorter, secondary vertical ridges, with occasional sunken, transecting horizontal ridges", pits "more or less vertically elongated", at least when mature; ridges "pale yellowish, becoming pale tan, then grayish brown with maturity and darkening to nearly black when dried", pits "yellowish when young, becoming pale tan to pale grayish brown"; ridges flattened when young but when old sometimes sharpened or eroded, pits finely tomentose
Flesh: 0.1-0.2cm thick in hollow cap, "becoming layered and chambered", especially near stem base; whitish
Underside: trough between cap and stem about 0.2-0.4cm deep and 0.2-4cm wide; sterile inner surface whitish, pubescent
Stem: 3.5-7cm x 2.5-4cm, "more or less equal, or sometimes basally subclavate"; whitish to pale brownish, "at first mealy with whitish granules, becoming prominently granulated", usually becoming prominently ridged and/or lacunose when mature
Microscopic: spores 25-37 x 15-23 microns, elliptic, smooth, contents homogenous; asci 8-spored, 225-300 x 17.5-32.5 microns, cylindric, colorless in 2% KOH; paraphyses 100-200 x 7.5-20 microns, cylindric, tips "rounded to subclavate, clavate, or occasionally subcapitate or widely fusiform", septate, colorless to faintly brownish in 2% KOH; elements on sterile ridges 75-175 x 10-20 microns, septate, "terminal cell subclavate, clavate, subcapitate or widely fusiform", with colorless to brownish contents in 2% KOH
Habitat / Range
under non-burned, montane conifers, including Pseudotsuga menziesii (Douglas-fir), Pinus ponderosa (Ponderosa Pine), and Abies concolor (White Fir); April, May, and early June, (Kuo(6)), found also in landscape bark mulch (McCotter), typically in clusters of 2-20 (M. Beug, pers. comm.)
Similar Species
Morchella brunnea M. Kuo, another ''natural black'', 1) has a more brown cap when young whereas M. snyderi tends to be pale when young, 2) has a stem that is not regularly lacunose, (Kuo(2)), 3) has a more distinct sinus between cap and stem, 4) has a more slender stem with flesh that is thinner and crushes more easily, 5) is less common and prefers hardwood habitat, and 6) grows scattered not clustered, (Michael Beug, pers. comm.). Morchella frustrata lacks a conspicuously lacunose stem, its pits are bald, and spores average smaller, (Kuo(6)). See also SIMILAR section of Morchella tridentina.
