Black Morel

Morchella angusticeps

Edible

Also called eastern black morel, narrow-headed morel.

The black morel is an early-spring morel of eastern North America, with a pointed cap whose ridges darken to brown or black. Like all true morels it is hollow inside, which separates it from the toxic false morels that fruit in the same weeks.

A dark brown black morel with a ridged, pitted conical cap rising from dry leaf litter

The tell

Conical honeycomb cap with dark, mostly vertical ridges, hollow from tip to base.

Field marks

What to look at

Cap, underside and stem show in a photo. The spore print does not, and it is often the deciding check.

Cap: Conical to narrowly egg-shaped and pitted, with long ridges that run mostly from top to bottom, linked by shorter cross-ridges. The pits are tan to olive-brown; the ridges darken to dark brown or black with age.
Underside: No gills or pores. The cap is attached to the stem at its lower edge, often with a slight groove where the two meet, and the inside is one continuous hollow chamber.
Stem: Whitish to cream, hollow, often granular or mealy on the surface and sometimes wider at the base. No ring and no cup.
Flesh: Thin, brittle and whitish. Smell is mild and earthy.
Spore print: Cream to pale yellowish.
Size: Cap 1 to 3 inches tall (2.5 to 8 cm); whole mushroom 2 to 6 inches (5 to 15 cm).

Where and when

Where and when it grows

Habitat: Hardwood forests and their edges, often near white ash, tulip poplar and wild cherry. It often appears earlier in spring than yellow morels in the same woods.
Grows on: Soil, in leaf litter near the roots of hardwoods.
Season: Early spring, from March in the South through May in the North.
Range: Eastern North America east of the Great Plains; western black morels, including those that fruit after forest fires, are related species.

Lookalikes

What the black morel gets confused with

Each card says how to tell the two apart.

Edibility

What the field guides say

Edible

Field guides list the black morel as a choice edible when cooked, with the same cautions recorded for other morels: illness has followed eating them raw or undercooked, and some people report upset when morels are eaten with alcohol. False morels (Gyromitra) and Verpa species fruit in the same season and are separated by the hollow interior and the way the cap attaches.

This page states what field guides record. It is not advice to eat, taste or handle anything, and a photo cannot settle edibility. If someone has eaten a wild mushroom that may be toxic, call poison control (1-800-222-1222 in the US) right away, before symptoms start: the deadliest species act hours later.

FAQ

Questions about the black morel

What is the difference between a black morel and a yellow morel?

Both are true morels and both are hollow inside. Black morels have a more conical cap whose ridges run mostly lengthwise and turn dark brown to black with age, while yellow morels have paler ridges in a more random honeycomb. Black morels also tend to appear earlier in spring.

Are black morels poisonous?

Field guides list black morels as edible when cooked. Like other morels, they have caused illness when eaten raw or undercooked, and some people react to them, especially with alcohol. The dangerous confusion is the false morel, which has a brain-like cap and is not hollow.

When do black morels come up?

In early spring, often before yellow morels in the same woods. In the eastern United States that is usually from March in the South to May in the northern states.

Sources

Where these facts come from

Morchella angusticeps
MushroomExpert.com
Black Morel
Missouri Department of Conservation
Morchella angusticeps
Index Fungorum

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