North Carolina, Curtis; Massachusetts, Frost; Minnesota, Johnson; New York, Ellis.
New York, Peck, 23d Rep.; Trenton, N.J. Cespitose on damp ground in woods. Forty specimens, July, 1898. E.B. Sterling; New Jersey; Pennsylvania. Gregarious and cespitose in several localities. July to frost. McIlvaine.
Irregular in appearance. Helvella-like but with a very soft gelatinous stem, yellow. The color of the stem distinguishes it from L. chlorocephala, which has a green stem. It is a small plant, but of good food value. Where it occurs there is often a goodly quantity.
MORCHEL´LA Dill.
Gr—a mushroom.
Stipitate or subsessile. Pileus globose or ovate, adnate throughout its length to the sides of the stem, remaining closed at the apex, hollow and continuous with the cavity of the stem; externally furnished with stout, branched and anastomosing ribs or plates, every part bearing the hymenium. Stem stout, stuffed or hollow; asci cylindrical, 2–4–8-spored. Spores 1-seriate, continuous, hyaline, elliptical; paraphyses septate, clavate.
Most nearly allied to Gyromitra; differs in the ribs of the pileus being deep and plate-like, and anastomosing to form elongated or irregularly polygonal deep pits.
Growing on the ground in the spring. Massee.
Stem stout; pileus ovoid or conical, deeply folded into pits, resembling honeycomb.
Notwithstanding Dill, the author of the genus, describes the caps as adnate throughout their length to the stem, such is not the case. Professor Peck arranges the genus into two groups, “in one of which the margin of the cap is wholly attached to the stem, in the other it is free.” In the latter group are M. bispora and M. semilibera.