Beware Of False Morels!
It is springtime here in the UK and the Morel mushroom is one of few edible mushrooms that magically appear at this otherwise barren time of the year for mushroom hunters but one thing to be wary of is that the False Morel also makes an appearance at the exact same time as the Morel, so you must be extra careful when out looking for Morels!
I had a surprise recently when I noticed several Morel-like mushrooms appear in my backgarden, a common spot for Morels to grow as they often appear within woodchip borders and are often spotted at garden centres too. However upon closer inspection I was not quite as lucky as I had first hoped – they actually turned out to be False Morels. The main visible difference between a False Morel and a normal Morel is that False Morel’s have an irregular pattern to their convolutions whereas the edible Morel has more of a honeycomb like structure with defined patterns. The False Morel looks more like it has just been scrunched up whereas a Morel is more structured. Hopefully by remembering this you should be able to steer away from False Morels.
false morels
Interestingly in some countries they actually believe the False Morel to be quite a delicacy although I personally wouldn’t like to risk it. It seems to be quite random whether you die/get seriously ill from consuming the False Morel or whether it doesn’t affect you at all. There was a case a while back where a family ate False Morels, 1 member of the family died whilst 1 was ill and 2 were fine and completely unaffected. It is said that if you would like to try them (and I am not recommending that you do), you can boil them and discard the water and then boil and discard the water again. It is believed that they can react inside you to create rocket fuel, not something that you would like to mess around with.
false morel
The best place to find real edible Morels is in gardens, churchyards, grass verges and generally around town areas and not so much out in the countryside. Mushrooms in general only tend to fruit when they believe that they are running out of space to grow underground (the Mycelium is the underground net-like structure where the mushroom forms). They might encounter a tarmac road or building where that the Mycelium cannot continue to grow, and so it panics and creates a fruit (the mushroom) which allows it to spread spores and reproduce. This is apparently very much evident in the Morel mushroom which only tends to fruit when under pressure, which could go to show why they love growing in gardens and more urban environments.
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james says:
Nice post, we had some of these in our garden and I thought they were morels at first! They look very similar!
Mushroom Spawn Philippines says:
Morels are egg-like in shape and are edible.
Does the false Morels poisonous?
Fugus Fun says:
I actually have a friend that I mushroom hunt with, that regularly picks, boils and eats these mushrooms … and loves them. I call him crazy, but he’s never had so much as an upset stomach from them.
In any case, people should remember that true morels are always completely hollow inside, while false morels are chambered if you cut them open.
admin says:
I think I’m right in saying that yes you can eat false morels but you need to boil them and discard the water then re-boil in fresh water, or something along those lines, but personally I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re 100 percent sure you know what you’re doing. I’ve heard that they are a delicacy, but again I wouldn’t risk it.
I’ve also heard before that whilst some people can eat a certain type of inedible mushroom, after a while their body builds up large amounts of the specific toxic substance inside that mushroom and may eventually cause them to become ill. A mushroom that may be fine for one person to eat may actually kill another person.
To answer a previous comment, I’m pretty sure False Morels are considered as poisonous. Thanks for your interest guys, always love hearing your mushroom stories!