 Morchella snyderi was described as new to science in 2012, along with 13 other morels from the United States and Canada. The study, published in the journal Mycologia, resulted from the Morel Data Collection Project, which aimed to help clarify the taxonomy, biology, and distribution of morel species in North America. The specific epithet honors Leon C. Snyder, who described similar morels in Washington state in the 1930s. According to Michael Kuo, who coauthored the species description, the morel should have been named Morchella crassistipa, as it was previously described by Snyder in 1938, from collections made in Washington. However, molecular analysis determined that Snyder's type collection contained two distinct species, rendering the validity of the taxon dubious. M. snyderi was also previously identified as phylogenetic species Mel-12 (i.e., defined by DNA sequence) in a 2011 study.
