I didn’t get any guessers. But here’s what it reminds me of: another member of the ascomycetes/mycota (which, as you *all* recall, is one of the four or five major groups of fungi, and is distinguished by the way it makes its sexual spores in microscopic sacs called asci), whose contorted cups have become the whole fruiting body and who have gone completely underground —

Tuber melanosporum, dug up and cut in half. This species is not found in the wild in the USA -- but other smaller delicious species are. Haven't invested in a truffle rake yet, though.

Yes, the black truffle. Yours for a mere 1,000-3,000 Euros per kilo in the farmer’s markets and shops of Europe. The labrynthine flesh is hypothesized to represent the final stage in an evolutionary chain that started with a simple cup (see below), morphed into a compound cup like the head of the morel, and finally became twisted and dark and moved underground, relying on its pungent odeur to get itself noticed and propagated, thereby slowly taking over Europe today, tomorrow the world! And thusly a 30’s era radio villain is born:”The Black Truffle!”

So that single crazy morel shows how a mutation or two (should that be the cause of the odd shape, and should it be inheritable by the morel’s offspring) can get you from one form to the other rather quickly, and that evolution needn’t take millions or even thousands of years going about its business.

You can see how Ascomycota fit into the Fungi on a tree here.

I forded a creek in the arms of a burly, bespectacled man to bring you this photo, dear readers. I go the extra mile for you.

These guys are not easy to find, particularly here in Colorado. They come up for about two weeks a year, and only under cottonwoods (and sometimes old apple trees). Finding land on which you can search among cottonwoods is difficult in the highly developed urban corridor, and then there are so many cottonwoods which have . . . nothing. We searched two major areas before we found these in a third. These are the first yellow morels (M. esculenta) I’ve found in Colorado, though you can chase the black morels (M. angusticeps) up the mountains through June.

Morels are in the major fungal group called Ascomycetes, one of four or five major divisions. They are called so because they bear their spores in sacs called asci. (that’s ass-eye, not ask-ee). Each of those fascinating pits on the head of the morel is lined with thousands if not millions of sausage-shaped sacs and other thin sterile fibers called paraphyses (pa-raf’-a-sees). Here’s what morel asci and paraphyses look like:

The asci and ascospores of morels. Image by Peter G. Werner, Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0 Unported. Click for link.

There are eight spores per sac because meiosis, or sexual cell division, produces four spores, and then they all divide again asexually to make eight spores. Some asci have pores at the tip through which the spores are actually shot out like a gun. Others have little lids called opercula (singlular: operculum). Here’s what morels look like when they’re shooting spores like crazy (you only need to watch the first 30 seconds or so to get the idea although there are some nice closeups later on):

Morels are the most meat-like non-meat object I know of. Cooked in butter, they taste of either steak or bacon to me. This deliciousness is reflected in their price: At Whole Foods in Boulder, you’ll pay $25-50 per pound fresh. I like to cook them with garlic and butter and a little salt, then add a splash of sherry at the last minute. The great thing about morels is they are hollow, which means you can stuff them! And look how beautiful they are in cross section — check out all the different colors and textures — particularly of that little guy in the lower left.

These are also called "land fish" in some parts of Kentucky. Can you see why?

That’s a fairly unusual cross-section for a morel, and it should remind you of something else. More on that soon.

Rusts are one of the oldest known plant pathogens, and the Romans even had a god –Robigus — dedicated to staving off the stuff (and that included the rust of metal — not having microscopes, Romans considered them one in the same). Rusts are fungi that go through incredible reproductive gymnastics, producing up to five seqeuential spore types in five different reproductive structures and jumping among two or three different hosts per life cycle. I think the rusts are abundant this year because we had such a wet June in Colorado, but that is just a guess.

Heavy infestations hurt plants, but in the woods they are very pretty to see if you turn over leaves to see the eponymous rusty-orange urediospores underneath. Mycologists have long, difficult-to-pronounce names for each rust spore type and spore-making body (naturally), but we’ll save those for another post. Just like our jelly fungi and zygomated mushroom, rusts are basidiomycetes, one of the four major groups of fungi. The others, for reference, are chytridiomycetes, zygomycetes (as we saw last time), and ascomycetes.

Ascomycetes are fungi that make their spores inside sacks called asci (yes, pronounced ass-eye (singular ascus: ask-us). My plant path grad school department once had a soccer team named after asci that grow without an enclosing structure: “The Naked Asci”), and we found several of these on wet wood too. Many, but by no means all, come in cup form. Eyelash cups (Scutellinia scutellata), in particular, peppered many waterlogged branches with their lashed but lidless eyes.

A body double for our Molly eye-winkers -- I forgot to get a picture. Image courtesy Dan Molter, Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license. Click image for link.

Next time: Slime molds. I promise. Also snails. Cute snails. You know you can’t resist.