False Morel
Gyromitra esculenta · Discinaceae
Also called Turban Fungus
A spring lookalike for the morel with a lobed brain-like cap. Its toxin is related to rocket fuel.
Deadly poisonous. DEADLY. Contains gyromitrin, which becomes monomethylhydrazine. It is volatile and cumulative, and has killed people even after the traditional boiling. The vapour alone is hazardous.
Read the full foraging safety guidance.
Season
March to May
Where it grows
- Conifer woodland
- Sandy soil
- Disturbed ground
Identification
- Cap
- 4-12cm, reddish-brown, irregularly lobed and folded like a brain, not pitted.
- Gills / pores
- None.
- Stem
- Short, whitish, stuffed and chambered rather than cleanly hollow.
- Flesh
- Chambered and convoluted inside, never a single clean hollow.
- Spore print
- Cream.
- Smell & taste
- Pleasant, which is no protection at all.
Lookalikes
True Morels have a honeycomb of pits and ridges and are completely hollow inside from tip to base.
In the kitchen
Never eat. Slice every spring find lengthways: pitted and hollow is a morel, brain-like and chambered is this.
Also deadly
Death Cap
Amanita phalloides
Responsible for the great majority of fatal mushroom poisonings worldwide. Learn this one before anything else.
Destroying Angel
Amanita virosa
Pure white, elegant and lethal. The one to check for whenever you pick a white mushroom.
Deadly Webcap
Cortinarius rubellus
A modest orange-brown mushroom whose poison destroys the kidneys weeks after the meal.