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.

Much of the recent growth, in terms of both variety and volume, is due to artificial cultivation methods that have helped lower the prices of a number of types.

An Ito-Yokado Co. supermarket in Kanagawa Prefecture has been spotlighting "yamabushitake" mushrooms, demonstrating the different ways of cooking and preparing the mushroom.

Since the events got under way in early October, the store has been selling more than 200 packs a day of yamabushitake priced at 298 yen.

Much of those sales are evidently due to the in-store events. When the yamabushitake were first test-marketed at some Ito-Yokado stores about two months ago, each could sell an average of only about 10 packs a day.

Apparently, many consumers are reluctant to buy the somewhat obscure mushrooms because they simply do not know how they should be cooked or served.

"If (test) sales meet expectations by December, we will begin official sales from next year," a store spokesman said.

The mushroom's name means "mountain priest," as the white, rounded fungus resembles tassels on a priest's robe.

"Maitake" and "eringi" mushrooms are other lesser known varieties that could potentially become hits in the near future.

More than 70 percent of maitake in Japan are produced by Yukiguni Maitake Co., based in Niigata Prefecture. The company has seen the market for the mushroom balloon in recent years. Between 1996 and 1998 alone, it built three facilities to produce the mushrooms.

A company spokesman said the price of maitake has fallen more than 10 percent during the past five years. Still, the naturally grown versions are a delicacy, with a single clump, usually weighing 2 or 3 kg, fetching around 30,000 yen.

The nation's top producer of eringi is Nagano Prefecture-based Hokuto Sangyo Co. The company has recently developed an artificial mass-cultivation method in which the mushrooms are grown out of bottles.

With a taste similar to that of the highly prized -- and highly expensive -- "matsutake" mushroom, the artificially grown eringi are proving popular.

"The production of eringi mushrooms will expand in the future from its present 7,000 tons to 30,000 tons," a company representative said.

Yukiguni is also aiming for a big chunk of that market. The company plans to begin operating a facility to produce large volumes of eringi late next year.

As for maitake, Hokuto Sangyo is constructing a production center with the capacity to grow 5,300 tons a year.

"There are about 5,000 or 6,000 types of mushrooms in the world that can be eaten. We are always looking for new types," a Hokuto Sangyo spokesman said.

Then there are the even lesser known mushroom varieties, such as "hatakeshimeji," indigenous to Gifu Prefecture, and the "ezoyukinoshita," from Hokkaido. The company is working with economic organizations and farming cooperatives to market these varieties as well.

Japan's market for mushrooms of all varieties has expanded considerably during the past decade. In 1990, about 279,000 tons were produced, a figure that last year grew to around 376,000 tons.

But shiitake, despite being Japan's most popular mushrooms, are suffering from declining domestic production.

Production in 1990 totaled about 90,000 tons, but had fallen to 72,000 tons last year. The major factors behind the contraction are an increase of low-priced imports, many of which come from China, and a switch by consumers to the other types of mushrooms.

And shiitake are not the only types of Japanese mushrooms threatened by imports, according to industry officials.

"China is a treasure trove of mushrooms," said Katsushi Mochimaru, president of food wholesaler Mochimaru Shokuhin Co. "Mushrooms whose production in Japan is on the rise are already being imported from China at increasing rates."