Michigan’s 2014 Morel Season has arrived!

The White Morels are just starting. Taken in the City Limits of Boyne City, Michigan, along with some others I might add., photo by Rick Wolanin

I’ve started to get reports of morels trickling in from here in Traverse City and other locations in the state. While we’re a ways from full-on morel madness, it’s a good time to start getting excited about the return of this once-a-year woodland delicacy.

Over 7 years, Michigan in Pictures has accumulated a lot of morel features – here are some favorites along with a couple from other sites:

• Over on Absolute Michigan I wrote Five Things You Need to Know about Michigan Morels that has some good info.
• Cherie wrote a great feature on morel collecting on Leelanau.com that includes a recipe.
• When you’re hunting morels, you need to know the difference between true morels and false morels, which are mildly poisonous.
• Here’s a great old photo of mushroomers with BIG baskets from the early days of the Boyne City National Morel Mushroom Festival which returns for its 54th year May 15-18, 2014.
• There’s also the 55th annual Mesick Mushroom Festival next weekend (May 9-11)
• TIME had a feature a few years back that I linked to (also with one of Rick’s photos) in Michigan Mushroom Nation about how mushrooms are becoming as American as apple pie.
• When the Absolute Michigan pool reached its 150,000th photo, I marked the occasion here with one big morel.

Rick lives in Boyne City, one of Michigan’s morel epicenters. View his photo bigger and check out more of his great morel photos!