Morchella Dill. ex Pers.
(morels)

Morchella (morels) may be included in 'feeds on' relations listed under the following higher taxa:

Morchella (morels) may be included in 'fed on by' relations listed under the following higher taxa:

Subtaxon Rank Featured
subtaxa
No of
interactions
No of
references
Species 1 references
Species 1 references
Species 1 subtaxa 11 trophisms 5 references
Species 1 references
Species 1 references
Species 1 references
Taxonomic hierarchy:
GenusMorchella (morels)
FamilyMORCHELLACEAE (morels)
OrderPEZIZALES (cup fungus)
SubclassPEZIZOMYCETIDAE (a subclass of cup fungi and discomycetes)
ClassPEZIZOMYCETES (discomycetes)
SubphylumPEZIZOMYCOTINA (a subphylum of ascomycetes)
PhylumASCOMYCOTA (spore shooters, ascomycete)
KingdomFUNGI (true fungi)
DomainEukaryota (eukaryotes)
LifeBIOTA (living things)
NBNNBN (data.nbn.org.uk) has a distribution map for Morchella (morels)

Morchella (morels) may be included in identification literature listed under the following higher taxa:

General Works

AuthorYearTitleSource
Anon. Morchella MLST database www.cbs.knaw.nl/morchella/
Pegler, D.N. & Watling, R. 1982 British Toxic Fungi Bull. Br. mycol. Soc. Vol 16 (1): 66-75.
Pegler, D.N. 2003 Useful fungi of the world: morels and truffles Mycologist Vol 17 (4): 174-175.
Taskin, H. et al 2010 A multigene molecular phylogenetic assessment of true morels (Morchella) in Turkey Fungal Genetics and Biology Vol 47: 672-682.
Wipf, D., Fribourg, A., Munch, J.C., Botton, B., Buscot, F. 1999 Diversity of the internal transcribed spacer of rDNA in morels Canadian Journal of Microbiology Vol 45: 769–778.

Literature listed under the following higher taxa may also be relevant to Morchella (morels):

BioImagesBioImages (www.bioimages.org.uk) has 48 images of Morchella (morels)

Morels are fairly common in Spring in both broadleaf and conifer woodland, especially on chalk or limestone. Sometimes they’re associated with old fire sites. In recent years they have increasingly appeared on the woodchip mulch used as weed suppressant in municipal plantings.

The species have been much confused and are not yet satisfactorily worked out, so for recording purposes it’s necessary to relate the finds to the reference used to make the identification.

There are three main groups:

cap margin free from the stem, ie M. semilibera
yellowish-brown round capped forms, ie M. esculenta s.l.
blackish brown, parabolic to conical-headed forms with vertical ribs, ie M. elata s.l.
M. elata seems to have two forms (but you can divide it different ways depending on which characters you regard as significant and which are just variability):

stipe narrower than cap which is parabolic to conical, eg M. conica var deliciosa sensu B&K (parabolic cap), M. elata sensu Phillips (conical cap)
stipe as wide as cap which is strictly conical, eg M. elata sensu B&K. This is a common form on woodchip mulch.
Microscopic characters are of little help and DNA has not yielded any useful results. The species often grow together, esp. M. elata s.l.

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