We asked for some help last week in the hunt for morels, the delicious fungi that sprout each spring. Readers called, readers wrote – but no readers were willing to give up the exact location of morel patches in the Baltimore metropolitan area. There’s competition among the morel hunters, and no one likes to give away secrets – not even to a newspaper columnist who promises to keep them to himself.

We are in the tail end of morel season now, reports high school senior Rafi Tamargo, who is serving an internship with me this month.

These few weeks bring the perfect humid, warm mornings when morel hunters search dead trees and thick brush for these ephemeral mushrooms that only grow for about six weeks each year. Some hunt the morels to cook the delicacy— although one hunter’s wife lamented to Rafi that they “don’t taste great” — and others sell their harvest for the $30 to $200 per pound morels can fetch.

However, a major morel-hunting site www.morelsandmore.com argues that the greatest thrill is scouring the woods for these fungal gems.  As they say, “If it was always as easy as walking to the grocery store, it wouldn’t be nearly as exciting.”

Despite the morel’s scarcity, local hunters do not compete with each other for the biggest haul.

Dr. Paul Edgar says he has gone searching for morels for the past six years but cannot recall ever running into another person on the same quest.  The search is more personal, more of a struggle to overcome nature, which guards these treasures so dearly.

Like many other types of mushrooms, morels cannot be cultivated, so those who want them must venture out in hopes of striking gold. The morels are such a great challenge because conditions need to be perfect. Thick, muggy mornings are the best time to go hunting.  Certain trees like Elms or Poplars seem to often have morels around them.

Places where fires have recently occurred often yield morels, too, making parks where they burn brush a good place to look as well.  Morel hunters compile all these secrets each year and follow the clues in search of one of the Earth’s precious treasures.