Here’s another obs of these somewhat unusual elm morels.
http://mushroomobserver.org/165336

if you grew it, Rocky. That way you could document thick ridges and immaturity, as well as documenting the mature state.

If it grows thick ridges and has to have a live host tree, it might be mycorrhizal. That might make it a separate species. Again, an important observation.

OTOH, if it requires a dead or dying elm tree in Pennsylvania, creating those conditions would prove it too. I think it needs to be done in Pennsylvania.

No need to do that in Oregon. Soil pH is wrong.

With thicker ridges represents the younger specimen, which was the point. The thumbnail is an unusual morel of the usual variety. I really don’t see anything extraordinary about the morphology in this observation.

From croc’s original post:

“to have thick blunt ridges at first becoming thinner as they expand, age and lose moisture”

This photo has ridges easily 3x the thickness of the other photo.

your assertion of NOT getting thicker in age lines up just fine with what Croc said.

It’s called dehydration. I have NEVER observed morels getting thicker in age. Or blunt.

I see only one species represented in this observation.

to have thick blunt ridges at first becoming thinner as they expand, age and lose moisture

whether you have morel species of mycorrhizal or saprophytic nature. The only morels I have grown were saprophytic, i.e. growing from dead and chipped branches. Nancy Smith has shown that some morels can be mycorrhizal.

A single half-centimeter of rootlet can host 7 different mycorrhizal species. Root systems being extensive, there are many such sites on a typical tree. Thus a flush of fungi in close proximity to each other does not preclude multiple species. Helen Smith, for example, found some 50 species of Cortinarius growing from a single isolated Douglas-fir in sand dune on the same day.

You state that the morels were found on a newly dead elm tree. This does not preclude a mycorrhizal species from fruiting there. Considering morela form sclerotia that can persist for years, the single blunt-ridged form may have developed sclerotia many years ago.

Your photos do not show the same fungus. I have not seen the extreme blunt ridge form before. It even shows some pore-like formation, with individual pores separated from the rest of the hymenium. The blunt-ridged form is not the same as the second photo, which appears to show a uniform species.

The next step is to check archived MO Morchella photos to see how many other observations have shown this blunt-ridged form. It might even be something new?

that feature relatively blunt ridges. This is my reason for proposing the name “Morchella ulmaris.” But the two photos show the same species. All were found growing under the same dead elm tree. The first photo shows one that had emerged more recently than the others.

The first photo has extremely blunt white ridges, roughly 3 times the thickness of the second photo.

The second photo has ridges more in keeping with M. americana as I understand it.