Now I am no fungi expert, so I am hoping one of you chaps is. We found these growing at mums in her new barked area and immediately thought they were Morels. We have looked through our books and online, and in our opinion, they are. They are completely hollow when cut in half, they have a dark, honeycomb cap and a pure white stalk, and were teeming with woodlice! What do you think?
They certainly look like morels EJ. They are expensive mushrooms to buy so hard to find anywhere but specialist stores aound here.
They do look like Morels, EJ. I subscribe to a Mycology website with a well-known expert, Dave Fischer. His site is Davefischer's North American Mushrooms. Sorry I don't know how to include the link, but he describes Morels in detail.
I'd say they are morels, but you want to make sure they aren't the False Morel which is poisonous. Here two good websites http://mdc.mo.gov/nathis/mushrooms/mushroom/edible.htm http://www.mushroomexpert.com/sitemap.html
O.K. I know we're from all over everywhere. But maybe anyone in the U.S. would be interested in this site: May 8-10: http://www.mesick-mushroomfest.org/
Petunia Madisonville ,Texas has a Mushroom Festival too.Check it out.I worked here for over 9 years in security. http://www.texasmushroomfestival.com/ For great recipes go to www.montmush.com
It looks like morels to me too. We've got the false morels in our bark, and I keep picking them and throwing them away. Ugly stuff. Lucky EJ!
My guess is no they are not. The stem should be alot darker shouldn't it? I don't remember alot of color difference between the stem and the cap of morels. The cap looks right, but the stem doesn't.
In my books the stems are described as usually being white. They are hollow all the way down, but they aren't perfect specimens so are a little mishapen, hard to see. We still haven't eaten them because of the chance they are false morels... Droopy, how do you tell the difference between true morels and false ones?
This is a good site to see the edible and poisonious ones. http://mdc.mo.gov/nathis/mushrooms/mushroom/edible.htm
The false ones look like big, brown brains. They're roundish, big and there's lots of them. The true ones look like conical hats, are a bit greyer in the colour and there are few of them. Ours have white stems. None are to be eaten raw, please bear that in mind. As for the big, brown ones, the Finnish actually eat a lot of them, after boiling them twice and throwing the water away, and then drying them, to get the toxins out.
I have to take back my comment. A friend brought me some morels last night. The stems are lighter. So I took a picture of them, they do look like yours in a photo. Sorry to have worried you.
