That strange, honeycombed, almost alien-looking mushroom that appears in spring is prized by chefs and foragers, one of the most sought-after fungi in the world. Its cap is pitted like a honeycomb, its stem is hollow, its flavour is nutty and earthy and unforgettable. New Zealand had its own morel – a giant, growing in the lowland forests, appearing after autumn rains in clusters that could fill a basket. It was the forest morel, and it is gone. Size and flavour made it special. A 20-centimetre morel is a spectacular fungus – a tower of honeycombed flesh, rising above the leaf litter like a ghost. Its cap was deeply pitted, each pit a dark hollow where spores were produced. Its stem was thick and hollow, sturdy enough to hold the heavy cap. Its flesh was tender, its flavour intense. Early European settlers in New Zealand described finding great quantities of these giant morels in the lowland forests around Wellington and Nelson. They picked them by the basketful, drying them for winter use. They compared them favourably to the morels of Europe. It decomposed. Morels are saprotrophic fungi – they feed on dead organic matter, breaking down leaf litter, rotting wood, and forest debris. The giant forest morel specialised in the deep, damp litter of lowland podocarp forests – the fallen leaves of rimu, tōtara, and kahikatea. It was a recycler, turning dead leaves into fungal flesh, and fungal flesh into food for insects and birds. Its spores were produced in the pits of its cap, released when the mushroom matured, carried by wind to new locations. It appeared in autumn, after the first rains, fruiting in clusters that could cover a square metre of forest floor. Morels are unpredictable. They appear in some years, not in others. Their lifecycle is complex, involving a network of thread-like hyphae that live in the soil for years before producing a mushroom. The giant forest morel was probably even slower and more unpredictable than its living relatives. That strategy works when the forest is stable. It fails when the forest is cleared. Forest clearance and litter removal destroyed it. When Europeans arrived, they cleared the lowland forests for timber and pasture. The giant morel, which needed deep, undisturbed leaf litter with specific host trees, could not survive in open farmland. Its mycelium – the underground network that produces the mushrooms – was destroyed by ploughing, burning, and grazing. At the same time, settlers removed the leaf litter for garden mulch and compost. The very material the morel fed on was taken away. Overharvesting may have delivered the final blow. Early settlers picked the morels in great quantities, perhaps taking them before they could release their spores. A few years of heavy harvesting, combined with habitat loss, may have been enough to push the fungus over the edge. By the 1900s, it was gone. The last specimens were probably collected by a forager who had no idea he was holding the final individual. He ate them, dried them, or pressed them. And the forest fell silent. The living morels of Europe and North America still fruit each spring – smaller, less spectacular, but alive. New Zealand's giant morel does not. It is a phantom, a ghost of the forest floor, a delicacy that no tongue will ever taste again. We cleared its forest. We took its leaves. Then we wondered why the morel never came back.