Autumn is the season for mushrooms in Japan. Every year at this time, supermarket shelves are stocked with a variety of fresh mushrooms, which are used for such seasonal dishes as "nabe" hot-pot meals. They are also popular skewered on yakitori sticks or served in miso soup.

The long-running favorite among Japanese mushrooms is shiitake. Yet this season is seeing a wide range of other types of mushrooms, some quite obscure, being promoted in markets nationwide.

"Ten years back, if you talked about mushrooms at the fresh-produce market, it would have been shiitake, "enoki," "shimeji" or something. But in the last few years, there has been a steady increase in new mushroom types that weren't seen before," said a spokesman for Tokyo Seika Co., a food trading company.