Morel Print
Morel Print
Size
12 × 18 in overall, unframed. The plate sits on an ivory sheet with a border of about an inch, so it fits a standard ready-made frame of the same size, with or without a mat.
Printed on 189 g/m² (10.3 mil) enhanced matte paper.
Want it ready to hang? The same plate comes framed in Black or Red Oak.
Yellow and grey morels, and one cut open to show the hollow cap and stem that set a true morel apart.
The print
- The full plate with its name, legend and credits, re-rendered from the source scan at print size, not enlarged from a shirt file.
- Restored from a library scan of the original book; nothing redrawn.
- Keep out of direct sunlight; a frame with glass or acrylic keeps it clean.
Shipping & production
Each print is printed for you after you order, usually within 2–5 business days, and ships on its own (separate from any shirts or framed prints in the same order). Shipping is shown at checkout before you pay.
Returns
If your print arrives damaged or misprinted, contact us within 30 days of delivery with a photo and we'll send a replacement or a refund. Because every print is made to order, we can't accept returns for a change of mind.
Plate 002
From the book
- Species
- Morchella esculenta
- As named in the book
- Morchella esculenta
- Artist
- James Sowerby
- Book
- Coloured Figures of English Fungi or Mushrooms, pl. 51, 1797
“The Morell is one of the few species known to the settler and to the farmer. It loves old apple orchards.”
Then and now
Sowerby's specimens were English. North America's yellow morels are now mostly treated as a separate species, Morchella americana.
Field notes
The plate's most important figure is the one cut in half.
James Sowerby painted these morels in London in 1797, yellow and grey, and one specimen sliced open to show the inside. That cut specimen is the key figure: a true morel is hollow from the tip of its cap to the base of its stem, one continuous chamber. False morels are chambered or stuffed with cottony tissue.
Morels keep their own counsel about where they appear. Charles McIlvaine wrote in 1900 that the morel "loves old apple orchards"; others turn up by dying elms, in river bottoms, or by the thousands in western conifer forests the spring after a fire.
Sowerby's specimens were English, Morchella esculenta. DNA work has since shown that most of North America's yellow morels are a different species, Morchella americana. Same pits and ridges, a different branch of the family tree.
LINNAEUS shares natural history, not foraging advice. Learn mushrooms from an expert in person.