It couldn’t be, could it? But yes… there they were… Morels! Or, more precisely, pieces of Morel-shrapnel. Georges Mushrooms pulled me in the direction of the adjacent golf course I noticed something unusual on a nearby tee.
Georges Mushrooms as well as an early flush of Fairy-ring Champignons, little suspecting that an unforgettable Shangri-la moment was approaching. I was contentedly gathering in the groceries, on this day the usual St. The day was glorious the little skylark was singing his heart out, a tiny fluttering speck in an azure sky, and every now and then a passing bee would make the air vibrate. It came on 18th May, 1996, at Luffness Links near Aberlady in East Lothian. Once again, nada.Īlmost inevitably my first success was entirely accidental. Stopping short of actually torching a forest to see if this was true, I did nevertheless adopt a policy of thoroughly investigating bonfire sites wherever I encountered them. My books never failed to remind me that in North America and continental Europe Morel fruiting was invariably heavy in the aftermath of a forest fire. Morchella elata/conica growing in shell sand on the Invernaver SSSI, Sutherland. Now that this illusion was exposed I was back to square one. Once again the field guides had done me a disservice, for every one of those alluring photographs where the mushrooms were captured in situ depicted a woodland or hedgerow environment which implied some sort of obligate association with woody plants.
His finds were on waste ground and a building site respectively.
I might have given up altogether had not a friend told me that he had succeeded in locating them twice in Scotland once in Clydebank, and the other time at Murrayfield in Edinburgh. There is no shortage of dismantled railway in Scotland, and I spent many days on my futile quest for the elusive Morel. This may be so in some parts of our island, but the books might at least have included a caveat that there are long, punishing miles of barren trudging to be endured on the greater part of the old network. Fortunately there are not many orchards in Scotland or I would undoubtedly have wasted even more time, but the single greatest time-sump inflicted upon me by the field guides was the idea that disused railway lines were a sure-fire bet. Sadly, however, all those books were written in England by English people for English people exploring English terrain, so I was sent down many a cul-de-sac with the advice that orchards were particularly fruitful hunting grounds and that plenty of ivy on the ground was a good thing. Morchella elata in garden gravel, (C) David GenneyĮvery Winter I would study my field guides planning the next Spring offensive.
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