general resemblance to each other in
size, color, form, texture, and flavor. The cap is usually a dull
yellow, sometimes slightly olive-tinted, darkening with age to a
brownish leather tinge. The stems are stout and hollow, white or
whitish. This genus has a very wide geographical distribution, but the
species are not numerous. Cooke describes twenty-four, some of them
found in India, Java, Great Britain, Central and Northern Europe,
Australia, and North America. Peck describes six species found in New
York State. The lines of demarcation between species are not very
decided; but as none of the species are known to be poisonous, it may
be considered a safe genus to experiment with.

In the Morchella esculenta the cap is ovate, in one variety rotund, the
margin attaching itself to the stem; ribs firm and anastomosing, forming
deep hollows or pits; color yellowish tan, olivaceous; spores hyaline,
colorless; asci very long. The Morel, though rare in some localities, is
found in large quantities in some of the midwestern States, sometimes in
the woods along the borders of streams, often in peach orchards, at the
roots of decaying trees.

I am informed by correspondents who have collected and eaten them that
the Morels can be gathered in abundance in the springtime along the
banks of the Missouri and tributary streams. A lieutenant in the United
States Army informs me that he found fine specimens of this species in
the mountains of California, five or six thousand feet above sea-level.
A correspondent, Mr. H. W. Henshaw, writes that he has made many
excellent meals of them, finding them on the banks of Chico Creek,
Sacramento Valley, California, on Gen. Bidwell's ranch, in April. A
correspondent in Minnesota writes: "The Morel grows abundantly in some
places here, but so prejudiced are many of the natives against
'toad-stools' that I had to eat the Morel alone for a whole season
before I could induce any one else to taste it." Mr. Hollis Webster, of
the Boston Mycological Club, reports the Morchella _conica_ as appearing
in abundance in eastern Massachusetts in May of this year. A
correspondent in West Virginia reports that quantities of a large-sized
Morel are found in the mountain regions there.

I have reports also of the appearance of the Morel in Western New York,
and on the coast of Maine and of Oregon. A miner writes to me from
Montana that he and several other miners, having lost their way in the
mountains of that