Morchella semilibera, commonly called the half-free morel, is a group of species of fungi in the Morchellaceae

Morchellaceae

The Morchellaceae are a family of ascomycete fungi. According to a standard reference work, the family contains 49 species distributed among 4 genera...

 family native to Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

, and North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

.

Based on recent DNA analysis, Morchella semilibera appears to be a cryptic species complex

Cryptic species complex

In biology, a cryptic species complex is a group of species which satisfy the biological definition of species—that is, they are reproductively isolated from each other—but whose morphology is very similar ....

, consisting of at least three geographically isolated

Allopatric speciation

Allopatric speciation or geographic speciation is speciation that occurs when biological populations of the same species become isolated due to geographical changes such as mountain building or social changes such as emigration...

 species that appear nearly identical on a macroscopic scale. Because de Candolle originally described the species based on specimens from Europe, the scientific name

Binomial nomenclature

Binomial nomenclature is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, although they can be based on words from other languages...

 M. semilibera should be applied to the European species, with the two new species, one each in eastern and western North America, requiring new scientific names. The M. semilibera group is closely related to the black morels (M. elata

Morchella elata

Morchella elata is a species of fungus in the family Morchellaceae. It is one of three related species commonly known as the black morel, the others being M. eangusticeps and M. conica...

and others).