Hi Irina,
Never heard about this species before, of course we don't have a steppe in the Netherlands.
It looks weird i must say but it looks a lot like this one i found in the internet, but i do not know what is the scientific value of a stamp :)
Cheers,
Stip

Hi Irina,

Maybe you could contact personally Philippe Clowez, who prepares a publication about Morchella:
http://www.ascofrance.fr/search_forum/11969?
Cheers - Luc BAILLY.

Thank you,

Stip, Morchella steppicola is a species, first described in the territory of Ukraine (Soviet Union) in 1941. Probably this name is not absolutely valid or is not well-known, but there are a lot of photos in the internet and a paper by Haffner, 1996.

Luc, thank you, I will try to contact with this specialist.

Best wishes,

Irina

It does not look like M. steppicola... but as the morphological variability in Morchella species is great, why not!
I suggest you to contact Zoltán Lukács (z.lukacsgomba@freemail.hu">z.lukacsgomba@freemail.hu) who knows very well this species.

Thank you!

I contacted with Philippe Clowez, he agrees with M. steppicola:)

Thank you for your advise, I'll try to contact also with Zoltán. This species is one of 2 Red-listed Morchellas in Ukraine, I'm very interested in it.

Cheers,

Irina

Dear Irina,
based on the habitat, it is possible that steppicola, but too young specimen is in the picture. In my country any rain only, I am not sure that I'll found M steppicola this year. I hope you will meet with it again.

Thank you!

Together with Philippe Clowez we have understood that it was true steppicola. I hope to recollect it this year.

Irina