Found a fungus on my lawn

[ann_leckie]

04-10-10_0857.jpeg
Originally uploaded by hautdesert

Is this mushroom what I think it is? Anybody know? i don't know from mushrooms, really, but this is a pretty distinctive one--and not one I ever expected to see next to my front sidewalk.

Comments

[lunapalma.livejournal.com]

Yes, it does look like a morel, but as the other folks commenting have said, you should, of course, make a positive ID before eating it. And yes, morels and other mushrooms are often affiliated (maybe "pair-bonded" would be a better term) with specific kinds of trees, but you don't always need a whole tree nearby for the mushroom to sprout. A friend of mine who belongs to the Mycological Society of San Francisco was called upon to identify a mushroom that had sprouted alongside a suburban driveway in the peninsula. The mushroom looked like a morel, but out here morels tend to grow in afterburn areas in the Sierras. The mushroom was indeed a morel, which had sprouted from the wood chips that the homeowner had spread alongside of the driveway the previous fall!