Classification

                                 

Common Names: Yellow mushroom or morel mushroom.
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Fungi
Phylum: Ascomycota
Class: Pezizomycetes
Order: Pezizales
Family: Morchellaceae
Genus: Morchella
Species: M. esculenta
 
Domain: Eukaryota are set apart from prokaryota by their membrane bound nucleus. Any multicellular organism will fall under this domain making it very large. Single celled organisms also exist in this domain (Martin 1983).
 
Kingdom: Fungi are set aside from other kingdoms because of their mycelia that grow to collect nutrients from the surrounding environment. These mycelia will grow into the fungi’s food and secrete enzymes that will break down the food for the fungi to ingest (Ferguson, et. al. 2003).
 
Phylum: Because M. esculenta is a dikaryotic organism, it must fit into one of two phyla: Ascomycota or Basidiomycota. What puts M. esculenta into the Ascomycota phylum is the way that it makes spores. The spores of M. esculenta are non-motile and are in a sac-like structure called an ascus (Lutzoni, et. al. 2004).
 
Class: In the Pezizomycetes class, the spore producing bodies are typically on the outside of a cylinder shaped spore and disk like. The asci are then shot out of the disk-like structures. You can see on the outside of the M. esculenta that there are disc-like structures that will shoot out the ascospores (spores that are inside of an ascus)(Alexopolous & Mims & Blackwell 2004).
 
Order: The Pezizales order is set apart by the rupturing ascus that forms a lid-like structure. The top of the M. esculenta shows this development with the porous structure that overhangs the stem (Hansen & Pfister 2006).
 
Family: M. esculenta beings to the Morchellaceae family because of the ascocarp properties. (Bunyard & Nicholson & Royse 1995). The properties are
 
Genus: Morchella is distinguished by the upper honeycomb like appearance of the mushroom and the hollow stipe (Bunyard & Nicholson & Royse 1995).  
 
Species: M. esculenta gets the name esculenta from the latin meaning of the word, which is edible (Roody 2003). M. esculenta can be used to make many tasteful foods which will be talked about more in the Facts section.

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