Finding Morels...

Your How-to Guide

FINDING MOREL MUSHROOMS

INDICATOR TREES
Seasoned mushroom hunters will swear by identifying particular types of trees as the key to
locating morels. Here’s a listing of commonly agreed-upon morel host trees:

Type of Tree U.S. Tree Range (Roughly) Type of Morel

Found Near Tree

White Ash Eastern Third, excluding MN northern WI Black, Yellow

American Elm Formerly Eastern half Yellow

Tulip Poplar Eastern Third, excluding northern MI and Black, Yellow

northeastern—most states

Apple Trees Where introduced Yellow

Big Toothed Aspen Northern states from MN to ME, Black

extending to VA

Eastern Cottonwood Eastern Third, excluding northeastern— Yellow

most states, VA, NC, some of KY and TN

Eastern White Pine MN, WI, MI, northeastern—most states, Yellow

extending through WV, VA, NC, TN, KY

Sycamore Eastern Third, excluding MN and northern WI Yellow

Table compiled from: Kuo, M. (2003, December). Recognizing trees in spring. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.
bluewillowpages.com/mushroomexpert/morels/trees.html

Morels seem to particularly love the American Elm, White Ash, Tulip Poplar and apple trees.
The American Elm has been greatly eradicated due to Dutch Elm Disease, but morels proliferate
near dead Elms. In mountainous West Coast regions, morels are fond of growing in Douglas Fir
forests.

Be careful around Big-Toothed Aspen, Quaking Aspen and Red Pine: they are ripe habitat for
poisonous False morels.

Some mushroom hunters report finding black morels near fruit trees, and even on lawns or in
fields! Some also find them near Pine and Eastern Cottonwood.

Some hunters look for yellow morels near Maple trees. Some can even find them near Black
Ash. But the yellow morel motherlode can usually be found around Elms, particularly dead ones
(which shouldn’t be difficult to locate, given extensive Dutch Elm Disease in the U.S.), and old,
overgrown apple orchards.

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