Nov. 1905 ] Remarkable Occiirrence of Morchella Esculenta 269 
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REMARKABLE OCCURRENCE OF MORCHELLA 
ESCULENTA (L.) PERS. 
W. C. STURGIS. 
During a recent hunting trip in southwestern British Co¬ 
lumbia the writer came across this fungus growing in such 
abundance and in a location and at a season of the year so un¬ 
usual that the circumstances seem worth recording. Usually 
one expects to find Morchella in the Spring growing on the 
borders of meadows or other grassy places. In the present in¬ 
stance the plants were found in September on a steep moun¬ 
tain side which had, within a little over a year, been subjected 
to a destructive forest fire. 
On September nth the writer was skirting the precipitous 
side of a mountain at an altitude of about 7,000 feet, and while 
passing through what had been a fairly good growth of aspens 
and small spruces, a few fine specimens of Morchella were no¬ 
ticed. Further search revealed the presence of these plants 
literally in hundreds. A fire had passed across the mountain 
in June, 1904, leaving only skeletons of the trees standing and 
charring the ground to such a depth that no trace of green 
vegetation had since appeared. Yet under these unfavorable 
circumstances and at a season when snow had already fallen 
not far from the locality, a bushel of Morchellas might have 
been gathered within a radius of one hundred yards. The speci¬ 
mens were exceptionally fine, in some cases attaining a height 
of seven inches and a circumference around the pileus of ten 
inches. In such specimens the pileus usually showed a great 
variety of form, from conical and flattened to nearly spherical. 
In other cases the pileus more nearly resembled that of M. conica 
Pers. The base of the stipe was in all cases much swollen and 
consisted of a mass of mycelium and soil cemented into a scler- 
otoid mass. Specimens were secured from which the identity 
of the fungus was later determined. 
The interesting question arises whether, on the western 
slopes of the Rocky mountains, Morchella usually occurs in the 
Autumn rather than in the Spring, as elsewhere, and also how the 
presence of the particular specimens is to be accounted for. It 
is hardly possible that the spores could have been carried to the 
locality in sufficient quantity to have produced in one season 
so large a growth of plants, and it is almost equally incon¬ 
ceivable that a subterranean mycelium could have resisted a de¬ 
gree of heat sufficient to destroy permanently all surface vege¬ 
tation and leave the ground a desolate waste of charred clay. 
Colorado Springs. November 13th, 1905. 
