Attains a height of 9 in. or more.
Not rare in May. Kansas, Cragin; Minnesota, Johnson.
Esculent. Cooke.
M. delicio´sa Fr. The Delicious morell is easily known by the shape of its cap, which is cylindrical or nearly so. Sometimes it is slightly narrowed toward the top and occasionally curved, as in the preceding species, but its long narrow shape and blunt apex is quite strongly contrasted with that species. It is usually two or three times as long as it is broad, and generally it is longer than the stem. Specimens also occur in which the cap is slightly more narrow in the middle than it is above and below, and rarely it is slightly pointed at the apex. The pits on its surface are rather narrow and mostly longer than broad. The stem is often rather short.
The plant varies from 1½-3 in. high. Peck, 48th Rep. N.Y. State Bot.
Its name gives it esculent properties.
M. con´ica Pers.—conical. The Conical morell has the cap conical or oblong-conical, as its name indicates. The longitudinal ridges on its surface run more regularly from top to base than in the Common morell. They are connected by short transverse ridges which are so distant from each other or so incomplete that the resulting pits or depressions are generally longer than broad, and sometimes rather irregular. The color in the young plant is a beautiful buff-yellow or very pale ochraceous, but it becomes darker with age.
The plants are generally 3–5 in. high, with the cap 1½-2 in. thick in its broadest part, and distinctly broader than the stem. Peck, 48th Rep. N.Y. State Bot.
Kansas; California; Rhode Island; Ohio, Lloyd; New York; Indiana, H.I. Miller, orchards, thin woods; New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, McIlvaine.
The conical form distinguishes M. conica from M. esculenta, if they are really different species, as some writers doubt. For the table there is not any difference.