In grass, leaf litter of Acer macrophyllum
LBM found growing trailside. Fiberous brown cap, slightly orange-ish stipe. Researching possible IDs. It seems like a precise ID on this mushroom will be near impossible without DNA sequencing - a resource I don’t know how to gain access to.
Cap: slightly less than an inch in diameter. Fibrous, brown, with hardened scales near the top.
Gills: Beige, adnexed.
Stipe: Smooth.
Annulus: Not present.
Volva: Not present; however, the stipe ends in a pronounced bulbous base.
Spore color: Rust brown.
Spore morphology: Nodulose.
Basidia: I wasn’t able to tell; some basidia had 3 sterigmata while others had 4 or even 2.
Cheilocystidia: metuloid.
Image 6 & 7: spores at 2000x mag.
Image 8: cheilocystidia at 2000x mag.
Image 9 & 10: possible basidia(?) at 2000x mag.
Growing on the trunks of tree ferns, photographed on black velvet.
In wood chip landscaping. Mild mushroom odor and flavor. Cap extremely viscid!
Spores measure
(6.9) 7.2 - 8 (9) × (3.8) 4.1 - 4.7 (4.8) x (3.6) 3.9 - 4.4 (4.5) µm
Q = (1.6) 1.64 - 1.87 (1.9) ; N = 30
Me = 7.7 × 4.4 µm ; Qe = 1.7
This may sound strange, but this is actually the first true morel I have ever found. Albeit I’ve only been into this sort of thing for a year now. Today it was sort of my mission to at least find some sort of morel. At one point I was chanting “morchella morchella morchella” into the forest floor to see if anything would happen. Literally, no more than 5 minutes later I found this litte guy hanging out, growing out of a disturbed area of forest floor. There was only one (to my dismay) - something I came to accept 15 minutes after scouring the ground for more. Really awesome thing to find!
Im assuming this is M. norvegiensis because its a woodland morel and consistent with most images I found online. Im not a morel expert, so if I am wrong feel free to correct me!
I went home, made a spore solution, mixed with some ash and clay and spread it under a hemlock in the woods behind my neighborhood. I await next spring with minimal expectations.