Shopping My Lawn

It's no longer smart to buy fresh greens at the store twice a week, so I hunt the lawn and surrounds for dandelion greens -- strong-tasting but palatable if "massaged" with oil and then vinegar; thanks to friend Jody for the tip. And while hunting -- needing about 3 ounces for a serving, because the greens break down radically -- I stop and see: a morel.

Haven't seen morels on this land for years, despite scouring the deep woods for 'em every April, and here on the side of the lane was one insolent little perfectly formed morel, and then I saw another, and another, a total of six, and then after getting scissors from the house and cutting them I looked again and found two more. I'd have missed them entirely had I not been hunting dandelions and spring onions that very day and hour.

The romantic cliche about finding morels in the woods had over the years displaced in my mind the fact that morels, being sociable, liking disturbed earth, prefer to pop up next to a well-traveled path. These occupied an area about four feet square alongside the gravel driveway.

I told a friend and she said I had been aligned with God. For the next five days, I cased the spot for more. Morels don't regrow. They decide when, where, and how they'll pop up, they're all up at once, and either you're in their moment or you're not. Sliced and sauteed them.

Devil's Urns

Friend and I spent Friday searching for morels full-time. We discovered:

1) if Spring Beauty wildflowers are still blooming in the area, the soil is too cold to produce morels.

2) that poisonous red-headed false morels are the first morels to appear; the black ones are next, then the black ones with long stems and short caps; then the gold ones.

At most, the cup is an inch in diameter.

3) my morel photographs record that morels are more likely to be found in the second half of April than in the first half.

4) if turtles are active in a likely area, morels are likely.

5) that other people are better morel hunters than we are. We found none, but met another morel hunter who had found three and showed us, and my friend was insanely jealous. However, this successful hunter had

6) instead of properly cutting them from the earth with a scissors or a knife, had torn them from the earth, "roots" and all, and because of that I could tell she had not been trained in morel conservation. If there are fewer morels every year, it's because more and more people who find them are heedlessly ripping them up by the roots. Please tell everyone you know to cut the stems at ground level.

7) Devil's Urns, Urnula craterium (pictured), are delightful because they indicate conditions nearby are right for morels, but search as we might we did not find any, yet it was a perfect spring day anyhow.

"Divine Knows Where to Look" for Morel Mushrooms

My first morel

Because this is the only week of the year to find them, I'd bushwhacked in the woods each day since Monday for those coveted morel mushrooms, employing all I've learned from a year's study and forays with the Mycological Society: morels appear on south-facing slopes, near fallen ash trees, between the "toes" of oak trees, preferably where soil is rich, near water and soon after rain, when the Devil's Urn (another fungus, black and inedible) has popped its top, and, most importantly, don't give up--and today the hours of sweat became worthwhile because in a Babler State Park ravine I found my very first morel, also the day's biggest and best. A few minutes later, my second morel I saw standing like an exclamation mark between the toes of an oak tree. And I found a third and fourth (smaller and older, and not pictured).

Even as I searched I learned. First, that I shouldn't look too hard. Each time I found one, I'd stopped to rest a moment--I insist on sensible rests when hiking. I'd knelt to grab water from my day pack and my eye lit on my first  honey-colored common or "golden" or yellow morel (Morchella esculenta). Using a knife, I carefully cut it free and bagged my treasure in a net hung from my belt. They say "When you find one, look around, because chances are there are more," but a long search in an eight-foot radius turned up no other morels, so I kept bushwhacking among the many fallen ash trees. You all know ash trees because I have shown you the trademark "X" pattern in the bark.

My second morel

Kept going, timelessly, scanning every inch of forest floor. Leaning against a tree about halfway up the slope I briefly rested my eyes, and looked up, and beheld my second morel on the north-facing side of an oak, just as plump and sassy as could be.

A while later the cellphone rang, one of those calls one must take. The topic was North Korean political art (don't ask). For a while I sat on a log, then walked and tripped and fell to my knees while still on the phone, and right in front of me was another morel, this one good-sized but chewed up a bit, and in front of that another: tiny, dessicated, and brownish. When a morel's stem darkens it's no good anymore -- in fact it's poison. But I took it for dissection and study.

After three hours, total distance half a mile, I came out ecstatic. I've waited a long time to be able to tell myself , "Yes, I have found morels. I've been taught, so I know when and where to look. I am not crazy or a faker. I am a real mushroomer. I don't give up." It's the best hide-and-seek game ever.

Before eating, morels are washed to remove dirt or grit, and cut open to ascertain that they are hollow (a trademark morel feature), then parboiled to remove natural irritants. They can then be sauteed or breaded and deep-fried, and a well-taught first-timer eats only a little and waits a bit, to make sure the mushroom is agreeable.

What Mayapples Can Tell You

Out on the morel-mushroom foray last week I made sure to join the group led by the man who'd been hunting mushrooms for 60 years because one must listen to one's elders. He pointed at a galaxy of mayapple plants in the middle of the woods and said, "That doesn't mean there's mushrooms there, but it does mean the soil there is rich." So it's a good sign that mushrooms could be nearby.

Could be near, because we didn't see or find any. Coincidentally on my own personal three-hour mushroom hunt on the Divine property today I didn't find any morels either. But I saw and traipsed through dozens of mayapple galaxies in search of my prize, and also experienced in the wild what my elders had told me:

• Look near deadwood, particularly downed and rotting ash trees.
• On downed and rotting trees and branches, the presence of Devil's Urn mushrooms that have popped open (pictured) is a sign that it is morel season and they could be near. Seeing Devil's Urns told me I was indeed looking in the right places, even if morels weren't there.
• Most fungi require a soil temperature of 50 degrees or more. (It hasn't been warm enough.)
• It's best to hunt on a slope, preferably a south-facing slope. In fact, don't bother looking at all for morels anywhere there is not a slope.

The previous tenants of this property said they invited a morel-savvy European to comb the woods for morels, but he found none. But now that at least 12 years have passed I gambled that there had to be some on 100 acres. I didn't find any today, but the journey, and the education, was my reward.

Morel Hunting Tip #2: Proper Gear and Dress

Mushroom hunters, not just morel hunters, carry wicker or balsawood baskets for their finds. As they carry the woven basket through the woods, spores from the harvested mushrooms are free to leak through the gaps in the basket and settle in the earth in order to make more mushrooms. Clever, eh?

This hunter is dressed for the early morning during spring turkey season, in a hunter orange jacket. He is also tick-aware and uses duct tape (what else!?!?) to seal his pant legs all the way to his shoes. Along with his basket he carries a stick -- just one -- to poke at the forest floor, especially around dead or fallen trees.

Morel Hunting Tip #1: Find Your Own Ash

Morel mushrooms love to grow around fallen and dead ash trees, and an ash tree can be identified by the striking "X" pattern in its bark. This is a fallen ash tree, so you see a horizontal version of the pattern. No, there weren't any morels here--yet. Morels like the soil to be warmed to about 50 degrees before they "fruit," and it's been too chilly. So if you like morels, go locate your ash trees (especially on a south-facing slope), and poke with a stick in the leafmeal around their trunks and roots every day for the next week, provided the temperatures warm up a bit.