May 7, 1999

    The Morel: Minnesota's Mushroom

With the naming of the morel as the official state mushroom in the spring of 1984, Minnesota became the first state to designate an official mushroom.  The morel is sometimes called a sponge mushroom because it resembles a piece of sponge growing on a short stalk.  Somewhat cone-shaped, a morel silhouette resembles a tiny tree with a large trunk.  They are four-to-eight inches tall, the caps are light tan to brown, the stems white, and both cap and stem are hollow and brittle.  The cap is composed of ridges and pits but the stalk is reasonably smooth.  The morel is edible.

Morels appear in spring after abundant rainfall. Look for them after a rainfall during the blooming time of the common purple lilac.  The season is usually about three-to-four weeks long with the peak about mid-May in the Twin Cities area.

The common and delectable morel is a soil mushroom.  The southeast part of Minnesota, with its many forested hills and valleys, is probably the best morel-picking part of the state.  But woodlands anywhere from the southwest to mid-state and into the north are capable of producing a morel crop, since the airborne spores of the mushrooms can spread throughout the world.

To find morels, some people search in old apple orchards, others look in evergreen woods or under stands of aspens.  Woodlands of maples and basswoods are excellent morel haunts.  They sometimes come up in grassy pastures and even in lawns, commonly near recently dead trees.  To harvest a morel, cut the stalk at the base with a knife so as not to disturb the "root" system. They should not be eaten raw, but since the texture and flavor of the morel ranks it as one of the best of all edible fungi, use them in any dish which emphasizes the mushroom.