Notes about your surroundings.

It’s mushroom season in Orange County, a fact that’s being celebrated today at the Natural History Museum of Orange County with a Mushroom Fair (see details in Datebook, this page). “Right now is the peak season” for finding mushrooms in the wild, said Walt Wright, president of the Los Angeles Mycological Society and one of the organizers of today’s event. “This weekend should be just perfect.”

Mushrooms are the fruiting body of a fungus that exists underground in extensive networks of threadlike strands (mycelium). They sprout during the rainy season, about four or five days after a good rain. “Like any growth, whether it’s grasses or trees or shrubs, you need about half an inch of rain to be effective biologically,” Wright said. The recent rains were probably enough to produce a bumper crop, he said. Wright said he expected to find from 150 to 200 different species of mushrooms on a collecting trip Saturday. The specimens will be on display today at the museum.

Oak woodlands offer the greatest number and variety of mushrooms, Wright said, although they can be found in an array of habitats. He cautioned against eating wild mushrooms, as some can cause digestive disorders and a few are highly poisonous. “You should know exactly what you’re eating,” he said, “and some can be hard to identify.”