Dangers of eating False Morels

“There are old mushroom eaters and there are bold mushroom eaters,
but there are no old bold mushroom eaters”

Don’t eat any mushroom unless you are ABSOLUTELY sure that it is safe!

You should never eat any mushroom unless it is positively identified as edible. If you are in any way uncertain about the edibility of a mushroom, don’t try it. If in doubt, throw it out!

While morels are easily identified, other species of safe mushrooms have deadly look-alikes. If you are just starting to collect and eat wild mushrooms, don’t rely on books or websites alone for your information. Go hiking with experienced experts, who can show you how to identify the important characteristics of edible and poisonous mushrooms.

Types of False Morels

There are four types of False morels that sprout in spring and are thus likely to be confused with the True Yellow, Black and Half Free morels.

Beefsteak Morel

Brown Bonnet

Beefsteak morel is also called Red morel (or Brains, Globs or Redheads)

Brown Bonnet is also called Beefsteak Morel or Red Morel

A quick description of Gyromitra Korfii. One of two edible species of Gyromitra.The other being a western species, Gyromitra Gigas

Elephant Ear

Elephant Ears

Elephant Ear, also called Brown False
Morel or Gabled False Morel

The Early Morel – Skirt Cap or Wrinkled Thimble Morel

There’s one more type of False morel that sprouts in spring that looks very similar to a Half Free morel, though it is not flat-out poisonous as the four listed above are. It’s commonly called a Skirt Cap morel. Unlike the Half-Free, the cap hangs over the stem like a cap or skirt; the stem extends all the way to the top of the cap, and it is filled with a cotton-like substance. It is known to inflict upset stomach and loss of coordination.

Nancy Smith Weber (in A Morel Hunter's Companion: A Guide to the True and False Morels of Michigan, pg. 17) reports that her parents were thus affected after eating this type of morel. “Mother first walked into a wall instead of through a doorway and then could cap a bottle of vinegar only with great difficulty. Dad had difficulty typing and lost at handball to a man he usually beat.”

Aside from Skirt Cap morels, False morels have wrinkled, irregular heads that resemble a brain or saddle. They differ from True morels in three distinct ways:

1. The cap surface has lobes, folds, flaps or wrinkles--not pits and ridges like a True morel; their caps bulge outward instead of being pitted inward

2. The bottom edge of the cap hangs completely free from the stem, like a skirt; on True morels, the bottom edge of the cap is attached to the stem

3. If you cut them in half lengthwise, they exhibit a solid or cottony mass; True morels are completely hollow