The Colorado Mycological Society has kindly asked James and I to do a foray for the club this Sunday. We will be searching for the often difficult to find Morchella esculenta, popularly known as the Golden or Blonde Morel. This year has been a very interesting year for weather for the front range of Colorado, and due to our great but late rains, the morel season so far has been very hit and miss. Some of the only areas we are finding them held their moisture during the drier part of early May. It is our assumption that this is why they were only in a few areas this year. However, Michael Kuo has a very good section of his book Morels about what he refers to as ‘Morel Theorizing’ where he pokes fun at much of morel hunter ‘science’ and discusses some of the leading ‘theories’ and morel know-how. If you haven’t already, purchase a copy of his book; it is a wealth of information. So, to make a long story shorter, we have no idea if we are going to see blonde morels this weekend. But I know we will have fun looking for (and theorizing about) this amazing fungi.
If you would like to attend this foray, we will be meeting in the Safeway parking lot on 28th and Arapahoe in Boulder Sunday May 22nd @ 9am. If you are a member of the Colorado Mycological Society the foray is free, non-members must make a $5 donation to Colorado Mycological Society. It is well worth it! Support your local mycological society!
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The foray was a success! Even with as dry as it has been for blonde morels this year, it didn’t stop us from finding 6 of them along with many other edibles. We ate Pleurotus pulmonarius, Coprinus micaceus, Marasmius oreades, Agaricus campestris with wild asparagus, and a giant puffball (Calvatia sp.) at the cook and taste as well as found a few other mushrooms. I believe they were Stropharia, Inocybe, Heliocybe, Coprinus atramentarius, and a Conocybe.