"The season has been bonkers," he said.

Not only are there more mushrooms than he's seen before but they've also come much earlier.

Mushrooms are the fruit of a plant which survives under the soil. Just like fruit on trees, they know when the climate is just right.

And the repeated downpours over the last two years have been ideal for the plant which thrives in damp and mouldy places.

"The rain comes and the forest provides," said Mr Wenzel, founder of Fungi Co, which grows and sells mushrooms.

It is an "amazing", "terrific", "astonishing" autumn for mushrooms, said mushroom fanatic Alison Pouliot, an ANU graduate who now tours the world enthusing about fungi.

She spends autumn in Australia observing mushrooms and autumn in Europe observing mushrooms (so she rarely sees spring).

And she agrees this autumn has been a bonanza.

"We've got a perfect combination of conditions," she said - lots of rain, plus falling temperatures.

There was also a mysterious element to mushrooms which not even experts like her understood. It may be something to do with nutrients in the soil. The mystery adds to the mystical allure of mushrooms.

She observes them in their infinite variety - and touches them.

"There's no record of anyone dying from touching fungi," she said.

"And they are just remarkable to touch because their textures are so remarkable."

Different varieties feel like satin or silk or gold, she enthused.

Touch but do not eat is her advice, though it should be said the official advice from the ACT government is not to touch death cap mushrooms. And definitely not to eat them, either cooked or uncooked.

ANU mycologist (as mushroom experts are called) Benjamin Schwesinger agrees it's not wise to touch them, just in case toxic substances stick to your hands and then reach your mouth. He says even if you did that, it wouldn't be fatal.

But attitudes are changing, Dr Pouliot says.

"There used to be a default response which was to kick them, but I think that's sad. We wouldn't do that if we saw a koala or an orchid," she said.

Mushrooms should be viewed with the same kind of wonder, she feels. There is the "wood wide web". Research has shown that beneath forests there is a complex web of roots, bacteria and fungi which connect trees to other trees.

These "mycorrhizal fungi networks" are nearly 500 million years old, and the idea of an "intelligence" to nature enthuses many people.

"It's the notion that under the soil, there's something similar to the internet, a kind of architecture or scaffold or tapestry," Dr Pouliot said.

"They are so beautiful. Just appreciate them."

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