Anomaly Photo Page
Anomalies are highly informative in biology. This anomaly has extreme features which tell the story of morel evolution.
The anomaly shows that the morel does not have a stable morphology. The unstable morphology is also visible when the Ower growing procedure is used, where the morels sometimes have a balloon-like appearance without the usual ridges on the surface. The lack of stable morphology shows that the morel recently evolved from an ancestor which did not have a macro-morphology, which could only have been a yeast.
This type of differentiation on a flat surface always occurs with the morel when there is adequate nutrition and high aeration. It shows that the morel had been recently evolving on a surface, which would have been the base of trees.
In part, the differences are due to the fact that every spore strain (outgrowth from a spore) is different for Morchella; but also, slight differences in nutrition have a great affect upon anomalies on agar gel. Some anomaly types, such as the granular ones, can be controlled through nutrients in the medium.
Mycelium first grows across the entire plate; and then cytoplasmic material is drawn back toward the anomaly in an endotrophic manner leaving nothing but thin, hollow tubes on the far side of the plate.