A spring without morels, and the false ones I photographed

May 9, 2026 · 3 min read

Spring is a thin season for someone at my level, which is probably good for me. The ones everyone hopes for in April and May are morels, and I have not found a true one yet. What I did find, under a stand of pines on a sandy bank, was one of their imitators: a reddish brown, lobed cap that looked like a small brain rather than a honeycomb, on a short pale stem. The test I had read about is to cut the whole thing lengthwise. A true morel is one hollow chamber from the tip of the cap to the base of the stem, cap and stem joined as one piece. This one was full of cottony partitions and folded flesh inside, which is the mark of the false kind. I photographed the cut face, wrote down the habitat and left it where it was.

The other spring mushroom I met came up in late April in rings in an old pasture: firm, cream coloured caps about the size of my palm, with crowded cream gills and a strong smell that the books describe as mealy and that I would call fresh flour or cucumber. The spore print was white. Everything about it matched a species that is widely eaten in spring and that many people regard as safe.

I still did not eat it, and I want to write down why rather than pretend it was obvious. White spores and pale gills overlap with the group I have ruled out for life, and my rule for that group does not have a seasonal exception written into it. The identification was probably right. Probably is a word I am trying to keep out of my kitchen for at least a few more years, and the way to do that is to make the rule mechanical rather than a judgement call I make in a field when I am hungry.

So my permanent list of things that never go in the basket, as it stands this spring:

Anything with white gills and a ring, or a sac or bulb at the base of the stem.
Any small brown mushroom, because I cannot tell them apart and some of them are deadly.
Anything identified from a photograph alone, including my own.
Anything growing on a verge or beside a busy road.

The list will get shorter as I learn. For now, a spring of photographs and one false morel feels like a reasonable return.