With Southern California stuck in a 20-year drought, the torrential rains this winter have given the state's wood wide web a bumper crop of mushrooms not seen in 26 years.

600% more rain has fallen this year than in any other this century, and when combined with chilly nights and a waxing moon that's past half-size, mushrooms can start coming out everywhere there's grass.

Across the world, every mushroom picker knows that a day or two after heavy rains is the best time to look for mushrooms, and California is no exception.

National Geographic reports citizen scientists and fungal researchers, called mycologists, are plucking dozens of never-before-identified species of shrooms out of the woods, while the typically prized specimens of chanterelles and morels are being carted out by the truckload.

Mushrooms are fascinating in more ways than you can count. And only in a true perfect coalescing of weather conditions does the true nature of their total infiltration across the whole of our world and society becomes clear.

Hunters are collecting a lot of mushrooms from the Santa Ana Mountains to the Los Angeles city parks.

Hunting for mushrooms is always best done with local experts, and if a hunter has the courage to use a guidebook, it's preferable to use a guidebook specifically for a condensed region, rather than the whole of North America, for instance.

This is because we know that there may be more than 3 million species of fungi, but we've only cataloged about 150,000. Many species that are healthy and delicious to eat have poisonous doppelgangers, and it's no exaggeration to say that some species will simply put you in the grave in an hour's span of minutes, mostly via kidney and liver failure.

Local hunting groups are also a great resource, and Facebook mushroom foraging parties will often post updates of where the greatest bounty can be found.

I have reported extensively on mushrooms, both as nutrition and as a prize to be sought in the mountains. This story about the Fungiatt or mushroom hunters of Northern Italy is perfect inspiration to get out into the woods and put your hands on members of the Third Kingdom of Life.

KNOW Anyone Who Likes Foraging? SHARE This Story With Them…