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Morchella esculenta
A single fruiting body standing 5.5 inches tall. The cap isn't as conical as most morel pictures and is attached to the stem at the bottom. The stem is ridged and widens a bit at the bottom to approx. 1.5 inches across.
Found growing on near a large tree stump on the south side of the house amongst mosses, creeping charlie, and other short creeping weeds.
It is not a false Morel because the cap is attached to the stem at the bottom. The only genuinely convincing 'False Morels' are in the genus Verpa and can be separated by the attachment of the cap to the stem inside the mushroom, near the top.
Some Gyromitra and Helvella species are sometimes called 'False Morels' also, but they don't really look much like them.
There is also the Half-Free Morel which connects to the stipe inside the mushroom, about half way up the cap. It is edible and in the true Morel genus, Morchella.
It is ok to pick mushrooms, you're not killing the fungus. It is only the fruit.
Thank you, annethologie and korumburra95 for your suggestions. How can you be sure it is a morel rather than a false morel? I am trying to avoid cutting it open to see if it is hollow inside since it is the only one out there.
As mentioned the cap is a different shape. (In fact, it's sorta flat on top.) On the other hand it's not nearly as "deformed' looking as the false morel pictures. I did find scans from books that showed this shape (and coloring) when searching for identifiers. Nothing I found mentioned the tightly packed' ridges on the stem, though some scanned/drawn images do indicate vertical ridges or folds on it's stem. I am too inexperienced with morels to know if this is an indication that this is not a morel or simply because of these particular growing condition.
Spotted on May 11, 2013
Submitted on May 16, 2013
