This month I bring you not a morel, but a false morel!
This saddle mushroom is sometimes called the hooded false morel or pouched false morel, but its scientific name is Gyromitra infula. The 5 to 15cm tall mushroom grows a brown to red cap and is poisonous to eat. It is found on the ground growing in portions of both North America and Europe.
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| Gyromitra infula |
For our key this month we return to our friend the Mushroom Expert.
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Mushroom growing on other
mushrooms or the decayed remains of other mushrooms.
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1.
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Mushroom not growing on other
mushrooms.
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2
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2.
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Mushroom with gills on its
underside.
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3
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2.
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Gills absent.
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5
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3.
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Growing shelflike on wood (or, if not, then gills concentric
rather than radial); mushroom very tough and leathery, corky, or woody
(try tearing it in half); gills tough and hard, sometimes maze-like; cap
frequently (but not always) with concentric zones of color.
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3.
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Not completely as above.
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4
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4.
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Gills running down the stem, not platelike and thus not
easily separable from the cap and stem (try removing an entire
"gill" with your fingers or a sharp object); mushroom usually not
growing on wood.
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4.
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Gills not as above; mushroom growing on wood or elsewhere.
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5.
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Mushroom with pores on its
underside (they may be very tiny; use a hand lens if unsure).
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6
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5.
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Pores absent.
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9
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6.
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Stem absent--or, if present, lateral.
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6.
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Stem present and central.
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7
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7.
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Flesh in stem tough.
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7.
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Flesh in stem soft.
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8
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8.
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Cap round in outline; pore surface not running down the
stem, or only slightly running down the stem; spore print not
white.
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8.
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Cap round to irregular in outline; pore surface running
down the stem; spore print white.
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9.
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Mushroom with spines or "teeth"--either on the
underside of a cap, or hanging from a branched structure, or clumped together
in an indistinct mass.
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9.
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Spines or teeth absent.
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10
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10.
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Mushroom covered in some part with a foul-smelling slime;
arising from a soft underground "egg"; variously shaped (like a
club or stick, like crab claws, like a lantern, like a Wiffle ball, etc.);
frequently found in urban settings, but also found in woods.
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10.
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Not as above.
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11
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11.
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Mushroom shaped like a cup, a saucer, a goblet, a standing
rabbit ear, a bowl, (etc.), with or without a stem.
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12
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11.
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Mushroom not shaped as above.
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13
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12.
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Goblet or cup with tiny "eggs" inside; mushroom
very small.
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12.
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Eggs absent; mushroom variously sized.
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13.
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Mushroom more or less shaped like a ball, or like a ball
raised up on a stem, or like a ball set on a starfish.
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13.
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Not as above.
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14
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14.
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Mushroom with a
clearly defined, more or less central stem that is separate from a clearly
defined cap.
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15
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14.
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Mushroom without a clearly defined cap and stem.
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19
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15.
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Cap shape convex to centrally depressed or vase-shaped;
undersurface smooth, wrinkled, or gill-like; rarely fruiting in spring except
in warm coastal areas.
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15.
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Cap shape oval, pointed, lobed,
saddle-shaped, irregular, or thimble-like (never vase-shaped or convex);
undersurface absent, or hard to see or define; many (but definitely not all)
species fruiting in spring.
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16
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16.
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Stem completely hollow, or hollow with cottony fibers
inside; cap with pits and ridges, or longitudinally wrinkled, or fairly
smooth (never lobed or convoluted); without reddish or reddish brown shades;
found in spring.
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16.
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Not completely as
above.
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17
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17.
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Most (but not all) species found in spring (in
north-temperature regions); cap lobed, convoluted, "brainlike," or
irregular, with brownish or reddish brown to reddish shades (never black,
white, or gray when fresh).
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17.
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Not completely as above.
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18
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18.
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Found in summer and fall (or spring
in warm coastal areas); cap lobed, saddle-shaped, or irregular and whitish,
grayish, brownish, or black; stem surface ribbed or "pocketed" in
some species.
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That gets us to the general group known as saddle
mushrooms. Next we will look at the key provided to further get down to our
selected mushrrom.
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1.
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Cap cuplike; with or without a stem. (Not treated below;
the cuplike species of Helvella are treated in the key to the cup fungi.)
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1.
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Cap not cuplike.
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2
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Photo Cred: By Horst74 (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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