Black Trumpets - Heralds of Summer

Work found me in Springfield yesterday morning and on the drive home I decided to take a short walk out at Ha Ha Tonka to see if I could scare up chanterelles of any kind.

There were a few common yellow, cinnabars, even some yellow footed. Picked about a pound of all these mixed colors. Then I hit the black trumpet patches, which were up in full force. I picked my share of these and in an hour I was on my way with enough to last me the rest of the week. The black trumpets I picked were Craterellus conrnucopioides. Check out MushroomExpert.com for a full description.

They are also up around Columbia. Jon found a different type craterellus foetidus in Rock Bridge State Park this week. You can tell the difference becuase the standard black trumpet in the first photo had a smooth underside. C. foetidus on the other hand, has wrinkles like a common chanterelles, though they are much more shallow.



You can find a good description of them as well on MushroomExpert; however, at least in Mid-MO you can ignore Kuo's comment about C cornucopiodes not growing in tight clusters. Many I found yesterday were fields of clusters of at least 4-5 mushrooms, though usually, like Kuo says, they are found in two's and three's. When you find a patch stop, look, and step very carefully, more than likely they'll have you surrounded.

June mushrooms and hunts

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. I have been too busy with life to focus much on mushrooms. But reports have been trickling in of first chickens and now chanterelles. Even had one report of black trumpets found down by the Lake.

Jon was out this week in Rock Bridge and came across some nice fresh chanterelle buttons, as you can see from the photo. So, I'll be out and about seeing what I can find.

For all of you who were interested in a hunt. I was thinking of having one out at Rock Bridge next weekend (probably on 6/20). For those of you who have said you were interested already, you will be getting an email shortly. Anyone else who is intersted, please email me and I will send you the details.

If you are wanting to learn more about how to identify edible mushrooms or just mushrooms in general, there are a couple of Mid-MO events that you may want to mark on your calendars and check out.

The first is a mushroom foray out at Ha Ha Tonka State Park on June 26 through June 28. It is sponsored by the Missouri Mycological Society. No cost to participate but they encourage you to join the club, which is well worth the $15 a year membership. I attended last year and not only did the group find and identify almost 200 varieties of fungus, but I came home with a fine share of chanterelles, black trumpets, and a few other mixed edible mushrooms as well. They are good folks and if you want to learn more about mushrooms and taste some incredible mushroom recipes (did I mention that many members have a guormet-like touch when it comes to camp cooking) you cannot beat this trip. For more information click here.

A little further down the road but closer to home, Jon and I will be hosting a mushroom class out at Rock Bridge State Park in the fall. The date is September 26 and will consist of a classroom session where we will talk about basic mushroom families and show some examples. Then after lunch (optional), we plan to go on a short hike and foray to see if we can turn up any good fall specimen. More information will soon be available here and on the Missouri State Parks website.

Summer mushrooms have started, so get back out there and please let me know if you find anything.

A Few Parting Shots

Well with the season drawing to a close and an upcoming trip looming in a few days it has been all work and no play at least as far as morels are concerned. But I did manage to sneak in a few quick last minute walks through some off the beaten path places over the weekend. So here are a few parting shots for the morel season.

This doesn't mean they aren't out there, they just get harder to find as they get overtaken by weeks of hunters and spring undergrowth. Hit the northern slopes or just head north. The MO/Iowa border should be taking off this week after this last batch of a good soaking rain. So, by all means get out there and find them and feel free to share any photos. I always love seeing some great photos.

I have found enough for me this year and hunted for a little over four weeks which marks a better than average season. I did have to walk a lot and hit many more spots to get my fill compared to the especially bountiful last year.

And chanterelles are only a few weeks away if you know where and when to look. If anyone is interested in a summer hunt, I am planning one for sometime in June. Send me an email or leave a comment and I will be sure to include you when I send out the information.

And now for some last photos....

The Half Free Morel - just as yummy but only half as much.

I have been meaning to devote a post to these guys for a long time but got too busy once the season started to kick in, so I thought I would work on it now as things start to slow down and I have been able to catch up on all the work around the house that I have been neglecting.

For those of you who also read the Missouri report board over at Morels.com, you may remember Jason from Nixa, MO talking about finding some half-frees early in the season that did not look like the half-free commonly found around these parts. The common ones tend to look a little like black morels, in that the ridges usually darken and often turn black as they age and they have long stalks. These are more like a yellow morel in appearance and have short stubby ground hugging stalks.

These however, more closely resembled yellows. When Jason first posted pics, many, myself included thought they could be wrinkle capped verpas. A close look-a-like that is often mistaken for half-frees and morels but can cause gastrointestinal distress in many who try them.
However, as you can tell by these photos Jason sent me, they are clearly half-frees. They are clearly attached to the stem on the stalk and not at the cap. Also, the stalk is completely hollow and did not contain any cotton-like fibers as the stalks of verpas do. So, it leaves us with a puzzle.

I asked around on the Michigan Morel Board (a great morel hunters site that I highly recommend) and fellow hunter Steo from Ohio said that he had found something similar that they call "woodsy's" or "spikes" and that he had sent a sample to Michael Kuo's Morel Data Collection Project (MDCP) on MushromExpert.com.

I had speculated that these were a different species in my conversations with Jason, unfortunately, due to lack of funding and time, Dr. Kuo has yet to get all of the samples he received submitted for DNA analysis and this is one. So we may never know for sure, but other DNA analysis of half-frees across the US identified only two half free varieties, one that occurs throughout the US and one that was only collected in Oregon. That led me to speculate that perhaps the differences were in growth stage. And in am email from Dr. Kuo to Steo, he says the same thing. "Your photo looks like a fairly normal half-free to me; when they're immature they often have short stems and pale caps like that." So I mentioned this to Jason, who assured me that they always stay the same and appear this way even when old in age.

I guess we have to chalk this one up to variable conditions and accept, at least for now that until the DNA results come in, some places just produce different looking mushrooms than others. All and all it is a good lesson on trying to identify different species of morels just by looking at them.

By the way, if you have never heard of the MDCP, I would highly recommend checking it out. Basically Dr. Kuo collected morel information and specimens from across the country and ran DNA testing to try and determine how many species of morels exist in North America. More information can be found at: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/mdcp/index.html. You can find the specific record for Steo's submitted half free at: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/mdcp/recordview.pl?2006041201

Overall, I find half frees very curious. I don't see them too much in the areas I hunt. Actually it wasn't until last year that I found my first, so I know very little about them and always want to learn more. If you have found any half frees this year or in the past, please post a comment or email me with the details. I am wondering if they are found around any certain trees in particular. When I have found them it has always been by a really rotten tree that is to old to accurately identify. I hope someone out there can enlighten me further on these fascinating little guys.

Some Report Photos

One of my favorite things about this time of year is seeing all the report photos with happy hunters. Take the one sent in above from Elizabeth and her daughter Claire from St. Charles County. There is nothing better than the look on a child's face when they find their first mushroom.

Even adults get the look when they find their first of the year. Here is Jon's better half Nancy who went out hunting with us today. Found about 25 between us. Not many out there but the ones that are left are getting pretty big as you can see below. With the hot weather coming later this week, it may mark an early end for the season in the bottoms at least.

Scenes from the woods

I'm too busy cleaning, preparing and cooking mushrooms to do a long entry tonight, and since a picture is worth a thousand words, I figured I would let some photos from the past few days speak for themselves. The one thing that always amazes me about the morel is the variety of patterns and colors.

Time to get up close and personal

I was stuck at work today so no hunting, but here are a few photos from yesterday. One of the guys who went with me, Ryan, took some great shots with his macro lens getting some nice close ups for me. Here was a nice pair including the largest and heftiest that I found. The bigger one had obviously been up a while protecting his little buddy. It was just smaller than a racket ball.


I say it had been up a while judging by the deep pits and yellow color, which is just my theorizing. I am sure there are many out there, who I like to call the "poppers" who will disagree and say that this just popped up like that. That's a pretty big mushroom and I didn't see any displaced soil from the suspected "popping." But don't get me started with the poppers. All I can say is I have photographic proof of morels growing (more on the growth experiment tomorrow). This being the Show-me state, I am still waiting for the video showing a morel "popping."

For those of you who have yet to find a morel and need some training for the eye. Make the photo below you screen saver and get that image in your head. These times of year, its all I see when I close my eyes. Perhaps that is why I have been having trouble sleeping the last week or so. Lack of sleep also means that on most days I have found a good sack of morels when many hunters are just drinking there coffee.