morel

/məˈrɛl/

Other forms: morels

A morel is a delicious, but strange-looking, mushroom. These fungi are considered delicacies, and you're most likely to find morels on the menu of a very fancy restaurant.

There are several varieties of these distinctive mushrooms, which have pitted or honeycombed caps, though there's disagreement about which can be considered true morels. The most sought-after of these tasty fungi grow wild in forests across the Northern Hemisphere, although they're also cultivated as part of a multimillion-dollar industry. French restaurants and gourmet cooks pay over 20 dollars per pound for morels. A possible source of morel, and the French morille, is a Germanic word meaning "root."

Definitions of morel

1. noun

   any of various edible mushrooms of the genus Morchella having a brownish spongelike cap
   types:

   Morchella esculenta, common morel, sponge morel, sponge mushroom

   an edible and choice morel with a globular to elongate head with an irregular pattern of pits and ridges

   Disciotis venosa, cup morel

   an edible morel with a cup-shaped or saucer-shaped fruiting body can be up to 20 cm wide; the fertile surface inside the cup has wrinkles radiating from the center; can be easily confused with inedible mushrooms

   Verpa, bell morel

   a morel whose fertile portion resembles a bell and is attached to the stipe only at the top

   Morchella angusticeps, Morchella conica, black morel, conic morel, narrowhead morel

   a morel whose pitted fertile body is attached to the stalk with little free skirt around it; the fertile body is grey when young and black in old age

   Morchella crassipes, thick-footed morel

   a delicious morel with a conic fertile portion having deep and irregular pits

   Morchella semilibera, cow's head, half-free morel

   a morel with the ridged and pitted fertile portion attached to the stipe for about half its length

   Verpa bohemica, early morel

   resembles a thimble on a finger; the surface of the fertile portion is folded into wrinkles that extend from the top down; fruiting begins in spring before the leaves are out on the trees

   Verpa conica, conic Verpa

   a morel with a fertile portion that has a relatively smooth surface; the stalk is fragile

   type of:

   mushroom

   any of various fleshy fungi of the subdivision Basidiomycota consisting of a cap at the end of a stem arising from an underground mycelium