More than 1,000 fungus fans are expected to gather in Golden Gate Park’s County Fair Building Sunday for the 48th Annual San Francisco Fungus Fair.
The event traditionally occurs the first weekend of December to coincide with the winter season’s first rain when wild mushrooms begin to sprout.
“Fungus really is among us,” says organizer Madhu Kottalam. “It’s everywhere, and it’s all over our lives.”
The fair includes several exhibits on almost any mushroom topic imaginable including cooking mushrooms, medicinal mushrooms and cultivating mushrooms. Volunteers spend the days leading up to the fair foraging for mushroom specimens across the Bay Area for experts to identify.
Naturalist Brennan Wenck-Reilly led one such wild mushroom foray on the campus of Skyline College in San Bruno on Saturday, Dec. 2.




