Morels, black tiger palm mushrooms, milk-caps, blackening brittlegill, termite mushrooms and matsutake are just some of the species for which young fungi fans have been foraging across the country, before posting their finds on platforms like Xiaohongshu, China’s answer to Instagram.

Competition is high to collect the rarest species.  The foraging in Yunnan province might have an edge in the race: according to Internet users, it is one of the three Chinese provinces that boast ideal weather to mushrooms, the other two being Sichuan and Zhejiang.

Yunnan province is often referred to as the “kingdom of plants.”  It is home to 900 varieties if mushrooms – including 36 percent of the world’s edible fungi types – as well as 90 percent of the country’s fungi production, according to Chinese media.
 

The rainy season in Yunnan is between June and September