It’s back to school time, so how about studying up on Connecticut’s fungi and mushrooms? The Connecticut State Museum of Natural History, part of UConn’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is partnering with the Connecticut Valley Mycological Society to host a mushroom gathering and identification event on Saturday, Sept. 12.

The hike, to be held at an as-yet-unannounced state park or forest in northeastern Connecticut, would be a good introduction to mushrooms and mycology says Connie Borodenko, a CVMS member and mycologist, who will lead the event. The exact location will be announced to registered participants.

“Most people are interested in edibles,” says Borodenko, who grew up in a mushroom-picking family, guided by her Polish grandmother. To her, it is treasure hunting, learning about the deadly, the delicious and the definitely interesting members of the Fungi kingdom.

“Fall mushrooming with my family was fun,” she says. “My grandmother only trusted herself with a few kinds of edible mushrooms that she learned to pick in the forests in northeastern Poland, so that’s what I first learned to identify.”

As a young adult, Borodenko broadened her edibles horizon when she got onto a Euell Gibbons kick. Way before there was Food TV, there was “Stalking the Wild Asparagus,” a book released in 1962 by the folksy fellow who had learned during the Depression how to forage food to help feed himself, his parents and siblings. The wild food celebrity died in 1975 at age 64 from a heart attack, most likely exacerbated by his smoking habit and liberal use of bacon grease and saturated fats, not from consuming wild plants, according to his biographer.

“As I was going hunting for my wild vegetables, I began to notice all of these wild mushrooms that I didn’t know, so I began to look them up in books, to learn more of the science,” Borodenko says. That led to joining the CVMS.

“Connie has a reputation throughout the state as one of the best mushroom hunters,” says David Colberg, a CSMNH staffer. “We’ve done a number of fall mushroom walks over the years with her and the society, and they are always popular.”

With well over 350 members, CVMS puts on Sunday morning forays at parks and other locations across the state almost every weekend from May into early November. The standard drill is to hike and collect, then spread out the finds and identify the fungi. There also are longer educational programs and events throughout the year. Track these on cvmsfungi.org and the society’s Facebook page.

Borodenko has continued the family tradition by teaching her own granddaughters about fungi. She started them young, with lessons about the Amanita genus, which contains some of the most poisonous mushrooms, and gave them little magnifying loops.

“It doesn’t hurt to touch poison mushrooms, just don’t put them in your mouth,” says Borodenko, who enjoyed watching the young girls explore the woods and examine their finds.

All the more reason for learning how to forage for mushrooms is that the activity does not reduce the supply of fungi. Plucking an edible mushroom is not akin to digging up an endangered wildflower.

“Mushrooms are not harmed in the least by being gathered,” says Borodenko, who compares picking a mushroom to picking an apple. “A mushroom is only the fruiting body. It’s not the same as digging up an entire plant.”

Mushrooming is seasonal, and weather conditions such as rainfall make a difference.

“Without rain, there’s just not that much to forage,” she says. “The mushroom spores are still there, they are just waiting for the right conditions. If you were to cut a cubic inch of soil from a piece of earth, through a microscope you would see there are mycelium from a whole lot of different mushrooms. But unless conditions are right, they aren’t going to bloom.”

Seasoned mushroomers and foodies know that we are nearing Hen of the Woods season, which lasts only three or four weeks. The tasty polypore puts out characteristic layers of curved spoon-like caps that look like grey ruffled hens at the base of oak trees. Borodenko says these are her all-time favorites.

The CVMS also is gearing up for the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center’s 14th annual Wild Mushroom Festival on Sunday, Sept. 27. The fungi, food and music festival has become a serious foodie and entertainment event, as well as an educational one for mushroomers of all ages.

“We talk, talk, talk all day about mushrooms,” Borodenko says. “We encourage people to bring baskets of mushrooms from their yard and we identify them, we lead hikes around the grounds, collect and identify mushrooms, and of course there are the mushroom-based foods from area restaurants.”

This year’s festival includes indigenous mushroom foods and recipes by the Mashantucket Pequot Museum.

When she’s not gardening in Old Lyme, Suzanne hosts a weekly radio show, “CT Outdoors,” on WLIS 1420 AM & WMRD 1150 AM on Saturdays from 1 to 1:30 p.m. and Sundays from 7 to 7:30 a.m. Listen to archived shows in the On Demand section of www.wliswmrd.net.

IF YOU GO

What: Mushroom-gathering and identification event hosted by CT State Museum of Natural History, UConn Storrs and CT Valley Mycological Society. Limited size group, age 8 and up. Bring a basket or paper bags for collecting, wear sturdy shoes and appropriate hiking attire.

When: Saturday; 10-11:30 a.m.

Where: Location TBA

Sign up: Registration required; call (860) 486-4460 or online at www.cac.uconn.edu/mnhcurrentcalendar.html

Cost: Program fee $20, or $15 for museum members