Early Morels: How to Find and Identify Verpa Mushrooms!

Disclaimer: As much as it might feel like one at times, foraging and eating wild mushrooms is not a game. Before ingesting any mushroom, it must be identified as edible with 100% certainty by someone qualified to do so. On top of that: any mushroom that you haven't eaten before should be cooked well and eaten in very small quantities the first time, to be sure that the person eating them does not have an intolerance. BE SAFE OUT THERE.

Hi there! Welcome to my little corner of the internet, where you get to nerd out about fungi to your heart's desire and nobody shall ever, ever judge you for it. You can stay here as long as you like! When we say “Early Morels”, we're talking about the genus Verpa, and in particular the species Verpa conica (AKA Smooth Thimble Cap) and Verpa bohemica (AKA Wrinkled Thimble Cap). If you're finding Early Morels, in all likelihood they will be one of these two species. Before we dive too far into the specifics about identifying Verpa (and how to find them!), we should cover why these delicious mushrooms are so undervalued!

To make a long story short, Verpa have a somewhat confusing edibility status. This confusion stems from a variety of causes, including: mistaken identity, being lumped in with more toxic fungi, the misnomer “false morel” being applied liberally across several genera, and the unverified but published musings of mycologists snowballing through a few mycophobic decades in the USA.

Recent publications by trusted mycologists, like Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast by Noah Siegel and Christian Shwarz, simply list V. conica and V. bohemica as “edible”. No caveats or warnings of any sort.

These mushrooms are widely eaten and sold commercially in other parts of the world. The vast, vast majority of people who speak out against them are US citizens with a lack of knowledge about mushrooms. Verpa species are no more toxic than any “true morel”, and should be treated as such. The subject of edibility is covered in detail in THIS wonderful article by Fungi Magazine. (You can also take any issues with the term “Early Morels” to the respected mycologists and editors over at Fungi Magazine, not my inbox please. 🥰)

However, since there’s still that outdated info floating around and keeping people from picking Verpa, we can use that misinformation to our advantage: it just means there are more of them out there for the rest of us that know better!

Combine all of this with the fact that Verpa are a fairly widespread species with a tendency to fruit prolifically in large areas of the the USA and beyond, and we end up with an annual Springtime treat that is relatively easy to obtain, but mostly ignored by other pickers! These statuesque, unique mushrooms can provide a wonderful warm-up to the “true” Morel season.

Now that we have all that out of the way, we can focus on how to find and identify these wonderful spring treats!

Confidently Identifying Verpa

Let’s start by taking a look at the main difference between the two species of Verpa that we’ll be discussing today. If you didn’t catch it from their common names above (Wrinkled Thimble Cap vs. Smooth Thimble Cap) Verpa bohemica has a distinctly wrinkled or pitted cap, while Verpa conica will have a much smoother, rounded cap (although it may become *slightly* wrinkled with age or dry weather). Verpa conica will also generally be a bit smaller than V. bohemica in stature. Other than that, the two species are close enough to the naked eye that we don’t need to make many other distinctions between them. Let’s dig on in and by take a close look at the two visible sections of the Verpa fruiting body: the cap (or pileus), and the stem (or stipe, as you prefer).

Pileus (Cap):

Verpas have a generally conical/cylindrical shaped brown cap that can grow up to 2.5” across and 4” tall! One of the distinct features that separate Verpa from similar species of Morels and Gyromitra is the attachment of the cap to the stem: The caps of Verpa attach only to the very top of the stipe. Imagine resting an oversized thimble on your fingertip, so that it only touches the tip of your finger. If your finger was the stem of the mushroom, the attachment point would be only where the fingertip touched the thimble. Another good analogy is that the cap hangs around the stipe like a lampshade. The flesh of Verpa caps is fairly brittle and flimsy. Given their singular attachment point, this flimsy flesh can lead to troops of capless Verpa late in the season! An animal brushing against a cap could easily knock it off, or the weight of the cap itself could even slide it down around the stipe. (See Photo) The flesh is of course weakened by age and seems to absorb a lot of water, so heavy rains cause a lot of potential damage.

Other Verpa Traits

We’ve covered the majority of the physical aspects of Verpa species, but let’s touch on just a few more points before we move on to the actual “how to find them” part of this little blog!

• Odor: Fairly mild, earthy, reminiscent of Morchella.

• Taste: Indistinct, but not unpleasant.

• Ecology: Scattered or Single growth patterns, often growing near each other but very rarely truly attached.

• Spore Print: Yellow

• Season: Verpa season generally starts about a few weeks before other riparian morels, and also continues into morel season for about a month (weather and location depending).

• Lookalikes: not many! Besides similar edible species of Morchella, the only thing you could really mix a Verpa up with would be Gyromitra, which are not nearly as fragile, very rarely have a single hollow chamber in their stipe, and don’t generally associate with the same trees or have an overlapping growth area. That being said: always be sure of what you’re eating. A 100% confident identification is required when eating any wild mushroom.

How To Find Verpa!

Now that we’ve covered how to identify Verpa, let’s get into how/where to find them. Here in the Pacific Northwest, our Verpa prefer the same kind of terrain that our Morchella americana inhabit: sandy soil near riverbeds. I can speak from personal experience and say that both the Columbia and Willamette rivers produce massive amounts of Verpa each year. Boggy areas with standing water, or ponds, will also often have Verpas growing around their edges. They’ll be found growing in leaf litter near aspens, cottonwoods and willows. Sometimes, this leaf litter prevents them from being seen until they are already past their prime, if they ever even break the surface!

Thank you so much for spending a few minutes here in my little corner of the internet. I truly hope you gained something of value here today, and that your next Verpa hunt goes just smashingly! Let me know in the comments how you did, or if there’s anything else you’d like to know about Verpas. As the co-owners of Mushroom Marauder, my wife Suzi and I would like to extend a sincere thank you for your support: you are quite literally turning our dream into a reality. If you did enjoy this content, or even if you hated it but just can’t resist yourself for some reason: please check out our Linktree to follow all our Social Media accounts like Instagram and Facebook. Again: thank you for your support and I hope you have a fantastic day! Mush love, fellow foragers.

~Adam McCrae