I really wasn’t sure thats what they were at first...I took one to a local restaurant that had a chef that wore a real high cap, so I thought he might know something about them...Yep they were puffballs and he said as a child his mother would slice them like a pancake put in a frying pan and with a little syrup they were heavenly.. But because of government regulation wild mushrooms are not usable in any restaurant. The morels are pretty patchy when I do spot them...a couple of years ago while walking the property with my son we found 2 handfuls of morel. They haven’t grown there since...strange little fungi...He said they were delicious...
Morels - I think of them as brain mushrooms due to their appearance.
Some years here, one or two types of mushrooms are everywhere; the next year it is another type and then the next year zip, nothing. Last year was a nothing year here.
morels appear around elms that have died from dutch elm disease rather thickly, when the bark is flaking off showing the rusty layer beneath. Look around the tree and they’ll be there, even quite far away. But the trees had to have died in the last five years or so, if they’re too far gone there won’t be much to find, maybe there is spore that is released when the tree dies and bark falls, or else that is the period the tree’s decomposition releases an important nutrient, but for some reason in Illinois they favor elms. This is from a guy who finds them by the truckload.