The species are so much alike that botanical descriptions are omitted of all but M. esculenta and Professor Peck’s species.
Not one of the Morells is even suspicious. They are favorites wherever found. The Morell is one of the few species known to the settler and to the farmer. It loves old apple orchards, probably because ashes have been used about the trees; ashes and cinders are its choice fertilizers. In Germany peasants formerly burned forests to insure a bountiful crop. Mr. Moore, of San Francisco, Cal., says: “We find it in profusion on burnt hillsides all along the Pacific coast.”
But it does not confine its habitat to burned surfaces. It grows in thin open woods or on borders of woods. It grows under pine, ash, oaks and other trees. Strange to say it grows under the walnut tree where very few fungi of any kind grow. Especially does it love the white walnut or butternut.
Morchella dry well and keep well for winter use.
M. esculen´ta Pers.—esculent. (Plate [XLVI], fig. 2, p. 214.) Pileus globose, ovate or oblong, adnate to the stem at the base, hollow, ribs stout, forming irregular, polygonal, deep pits, pale dingy yellow, buff or tawny, 1.25–2.5 in. high and broad. Stem stout, whitish, almost even, hollow or stuffed, 1.25–2.5 in. high, .8 in. and more thick; asci cylindrical, 8-spored. Spores continuous, smooth, hyaline, elliptical, ends obtuse, 19–20×10µ, paraphyses rather slender, slightly thickened upward.
On the ground. Spring and early summer. Edible.
Variable in form, size and color, but distinguished by the pileus being adnate to the stem at the base, and the stout ribs anastomosing to form irregular, polygonal pits of about equal size, and not elongated. Massee.
Common over the states, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey. In orchards, on ashes and cinders, under walnut, pine and oak trees. May and June. McIlvaine.
The common Morell varies in size, 2–4 in. high, sometimes larger. The cap, usually broader than it is long, oval, at times tapering to a rounded top. The cavities resemble those of a weather-beaten honeycomb, and are whitish, or grayish or brownish. The stem is about ½ in. in diameter. It is an easily recognized species. Edible. Choice. Total nitrogen, according to Lafayette B. Mendel, 4.66 per cent.
M. cras´sipes Pers.—crassus, thick; pes, a foot. Agreeing with M. esculenta in having the pits of the pileus irregular in form, not much, if at all, longer than broad, and in not having a main series of more or less parallel and vertical ribs; differing in the stout stem being much longer than the pileus. Massee.