Harvesting Wild Reishi Mushrooms

[Music] everyone Madame Harrison and today I'm exploring the woods here in western Pennsylvania in search of one mushroom in particular and that mushroom is one of my favorite mushrooms it's one that's been a major part of my medicinal strategy for the past seven years or so and that mushroom is none other than Ganoderma sue gave the hemlock reishi mushroom today the perfect data looks at this mushroom because it's late spring early summer that's typically the time of year when you're looking for Ganoderma suea and this year 2017 has been such an incredible year already and so I'm pretty sure I'm going to find it I'm going to look around this area and notice where I am I'm in a predominantly hemlock forested area and those are the places where you really want to look so in this video we're going to look for this mushroom we're going to talk about its identification I'm going to teach you some tips on how to find this mushroom in the wild if you've never even discovered it before and of course we're going to talk about the medicinal benefits so let's go see what we can find ok so found my first cluster of reishi mushrooms a nice trio right here Ganoderma suya and small in Eastern hemlock tree right on this hillside a couple other good spots around here as well now this is pretty closely related to Ganoderma lucidum the reishi mushroom using traditional chinese medicine the classic Ling Qi mushroom although some people are debating whether the true Ling Qi used in traditional Chinese medicine is Ganoderma lucidum but for now most people are calling that one Ganoderma lucidum this one is Ganoderma su gay sooo gay comes from sugah canadensis the Eastern hemlock tree the substrate on which this primarily grows now the Ganoderma genus is a very large genus of mushrooms and worldwide they're probably between 250 to 300 species in the name Ganoderma literally means brightly colored skin or bright skin so gannis is Greek for brightness or Sheen and derma is skin and not all reishi mushrooms are not all Ganoderma mushrooms I should say have brightly colored cap you can typically split the Ganoderma genus into two groups the lactaid mushrooms in the non lacking lactate means has like a waxy coating on the top this one will be lactate then there's a non lactate species like the Ganoderma Appling a dumb complex if you find the artist cause mushrooms they're not really waxy on top now this particular one Ganoderma sue gay is a classic white rot mushroom meaning it's helping to break down the lignin in the Eastern hemlock tree and it's a selective lignin D greater meaning that it primarily just degrades lignin it also degrades Hemi cellulose to some degree but not really much cellulose all three of these are plants level compounds you look and feel guide sometimes you'll see that mushrooms are brown rot fungi those ones primarily degrade the cellulose and leave behind the lignin this one's the classic white broth mushroom the fact that it breaks down the lignin and leaves behind a lot of cellulose now that we know about the role this mushroom let's talk about some proper identifying features of this that you can positively identify this in the field the most distinctive feature for Ganoderma su gay where to mention this is probably the varnish appearance of its cap it's lacquered waxy coating on its cap you're looking through a hemlock forest and May June July and you find a mushroom it's grown from Eastern hemlock tree that looks like this has its waxy coating it's probably Ganoderma to game now at first this mushroom has a whitish dough-like margin and as you move towards the center it turns yellowish orangish reddish as well and adds this mushroom matures the top turns almost completely red and this mushroom attaches to the substrate to the Eastern hemlock tree through a stock so you're gonna see a little stock sometimes it's very small sometimes it's very large and these mushrooms right here you can see that there's definitely some substance to be sucked now this mushroom actually placing the pelipper is genus if you're in a taxonomy actually also you can place in the foamies genus now it's in the Ganoderma genus the flippers because you look at the underside it's covered with thousands of tiny microscopic spores this is a polypore mushroom does not be named guild on the underside and first these pores are wiped and they turn brownish and it bruises slightly brown and it deposits it grounds for prints besides its muscles very dramatically you'll find some that are very small pressing early in the season you will find specimens that are over 12 inches in width but generally speaking I'm seeing them kind of look like this you know this one's probably six inches to eight inches across this one's a little smaller right here but as you move to the fourth sizes are definitely going to vary so let's talk about some tips on how to find Ganoderma sugan because now that you know what it looks like how do we get out there how do we even know what Eastern hemlock trees look like how do we know where these forests exist so of course one of the key features for finding Ganoderma su gaze to look in Eastern hemlock forest so this mushroom primarily grows in the eastern United States in eastern North America you're living anywhere outside of that range of probably not going to find the editor of a Sioux gay but you might find other reishi mushrooms in the Ganoderma genus but their substrates are going to vary I'm not going to grow in Eastern hemlock trees the Ganoderma Sioux gate almost always does now Ganoderma tsuki it doesn't always grow in Eastern hemlock trees it can grow on some hardwoods and it can grow on birch trees for example and I've seen a grown birch trees and I believe I've even seen it growing on a beech tree but it's not exclusively Ganoderma sugah but I'd say you know over 98 to 99 percent of the time you're finding it on Eastern hemlock tree so Eastern hemlock trees to the canadensis this is our state tree here in Pennsylvania this is a conifer tree it's an evergreen tree that retains its leaves in the wintertime so you can identify it all year round with ease because you will see its leaves now its leaves are more likely than needles and typically when you think of something in the pinus genus like a pine tree eastern white pine tree you typically think of the needles that are pointed at the end not really so with Eastern hemlock trees their leaves or needles are flattened and on the underside you will see two silver strips these are the stomata of the leaf so flattened leaves and you will see stomata on the underside of these two silver strips now when you're looking at Eastern hemlock forest you're also going to find other companion plants around don't just look at Eastern hemlock trees look for other plants around as well that will signify that you're in an area near Eastern hemlock trees typically I'm seeing a lot of birch trees I'm seeing yellow birch trees special Allegheny n system also seeing black birch trees betcha low lenta whenever I look at the forest floor I'm seeing plants like Canada Mayflower I'm seeing wild ginger and I'm seeing Solomon seal as well so all these plants all these trees exist in a hemlock forest especially the ones here in Pennsylvania to go to those areas and you will probably have a lot of luck finding Ganoderma sugah especially if you're looking in May June early July now there is a resurgence of this mushroom in the fall I've seen it in October I've even seen it in December and I think I've seen it in January before fresh specimens as well maybe a tiny bit pasture prime but still harvestable so it does have a resurgence but this is an annual mushrooms it only has a one season lifecycle and it's going to die back and it's probably go to peer again the next here now one of the things that I mentioned early on is that this degrades the lignin in Eastern hemlock trees so you're primarily going to find this on dead eastern hemlock trees to look for the ones that have fallen down look for the ones that are standing but that are dead if you're finding nice healthy strong Eastern hemlock trees you're probably not going to find a lot of Ganoderma sue gay but in any Eastern hemlock forest you're going to find the dead limbs you're going to find the dead branches you're going to find a lot of the logs that are on the forest floor look on those areas especially the really mossy log this is the ones that I tend to find a lot of Ganoderma sue gay on something that you won't ever find it on a living Eastern hemlock tree this mushroom is also reportedly parasitic meaning it will invade living trees and help degrade some of the wood inside those trees but for the most part it's found on dead Eastern hemlock trees are the ones that are really on their way out so what's this special about Ganoderma sue get we talked a lot about this mushroom but we haven't discussed anything in regards to health so there are four key areas where this mushroom really shines especially when you look at the scientific literature so all this is backed by scientific research four key areas include immune system health cancer allergies and air pollution believe it or not so let's talk about immune system helps again a dermis sugah contains compounds known as beta glucan these are polysaccharides that make up the cell walls of fungi so Ganoderma sue gays in the only mushroom that has beta glucans but it has a lot of beta glucans that are pharmacologically active what they do is they act as immune system regulators they can help to modulate your immune system what this means is that they can stimulate the immune system working with both the innate and the adaptive immune system but they can also suppress the immune system to some degree this would be applicable for certain autoimmune conditions where inflammation is out of control it can help to reduce inflammation associated with a lot of these autoimmune disorders now as I said Ganoderma Judaism the only mushroom that contains these pharmacologically active beta glucans when we look at remedies versicolor the turkey tail fungus when whenever we look at chaga shiitake even dried saddle believe it or not has these immune system regulators known as these beta glucan that have been studied in a scientific literature so immune system health with Ganoderma sue game the second key area is cancer various studies have looked at the anti-cancer properties of Ganoderma sue gay specifically against neuroblastoma against breast cancer liver answer and also colorectal cancer in a particular study came out in 2015 put out in the International Journal medicinal mushrooms showing that hot water extract from Ganoderma su gay so something that you can make at home very easily essentially making a decoction or tea out of Ganoderma to get this hot water extraction had anti-cancer properties against human leukemia cells liver cancer cells and also glioma cells and glioma is a type of cancer that begins in the brain or spine and specific mechanism behind this anti-cancerous property was anti proliferation meaning these hot water extracts put a stop to the increase in number of these cancerous cells the third key area is allergies and study put out in 2015 found that at writer poet extracts another hot water extract but tried terpenes or tried terpenoids would be extracted in a non-polar solvent so maybe ethanol would be an effective way to extract these tried turpenoid so tried terpenoid extract suppress both histamine and also interleukin 4 maybe you're familiar with at least one of those compounds so histamine is associated with allergenic response it's released in our bodies and it's responsible for the watery eyes the runny nose sneezing the itching many pharmaceutical drugs that are anti allergenic on the market are antihistamines and tractor Prannoy dex tract had anti histamine properties but it also suppress interleukin 4 now interleukin 4 is a compound that's absolutely essential for a healthy immune system however overproduction of it is associated with allergies so anti-allergy potential with Ganoderma sugah in the fourth key area with Ganoderma so VA and health would be protection against the damaging effects caused by air pollution so air pollution is certainly no joke in a 5.5 million people every single year died due to pollutants in our atmosphere and whenever we ingest whenever we breathe these air pollutants oxidation and our body's increases DNA becomes damaged fats lipids become damaged proteins become damaged inflammatory molecules are released and our own internal antioxidant defense system is suppressed in researchers in 2016 so a very recent study put out this study in the American Journal of Chinese medicine showing that in extract of Ganoderma sugah applied to cells prevented diesel exhaust particulate matter so air pollutants essentially from actually entering the cell these air pollutants just accumulate on the surfaces and never went in so we extrapolate this to the macro level to the human level we could see that Ganoderma Sookie may prevent air pollutants from even getting into a circulatory system and this is fantastic because if you live in an area with air pollutants and I'm sure you do you know unless we're living deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep within a forest and we never venture out of that force we are going to be exposed to airport in to some degree so perhaps by ingesting something like Ganoderma sue gate we could protect our bodies from these damaging effects caused by all these air pollutants so those aren't the only four areas where Ganoderma sue gay really shines we see that there are other areas as well there are lots of other studies and I think as time goes on we're going to see lots more research on Ganoderma so you get a hemlock reishi mushroom if you don't live in an area where this grows if you don't live primarily in eastern North America that's okay I'm sure you have another reishi mushroom where you live or another member of the Ganoderma genus and I encourage you to get out there learn a little bit about this mushroom and see if you could bring this home and see what it may or may not be able to do for you but if you do live in an area with Ganoderma sue gay get out there right now 2017 has been such an incredible year for this mushroom and I'm looking forward to see if this is going to pop back up again in the fall in such great numbers like we're seeing right now overall thank you for watching this video truly appreciate it as always grown YouTube feel free to subscribe to the YouTube channel I encourage you to follow me on social media I put out a lot of other videos on Facebook and I put a lot of photos on Instagram you can follow me at learn your land and if you wanna sign up for the email newsletter there's a link down below in the notes thanks again for watching happy hmm

Channel: Learn Your Land

Views: 217,808

Keywords: Reishi, Adam Haritan, Medicine, Fungus, Hunting, Fishing, Backpacking, Nature, Outdoors, Garden, Farming, Permaculture, Mushroom Hunting, Mushroom, Fungi, Pennsylvania, Hemlock, Learn Your Land, McConnells Mill State Park, Universe, Stuart Wilde, David Wolfe, Daniel Vitalis, Foraging, Medicinal Mushrooms

Id: IdGd9ifEQgY

Length: 12min 39sec (759 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 07 2017