What is Reishi?

What is Reishi?

Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum), also known as 'Ling Zhi' in Chinese, is a very rare mushroom and one of the most revered botanicals in Chinese herbalism. Because of its auspiciousness and rarity, Reishi mushrooms were reserved for Emperors only, in Imperial China.

References to the use of Reishi date back more than 2000 years. In classical Chinese herbal text, Reishi was classified as the most superior herb, surpassing even ginseng.

Reishi’s efficacy lies in its wide range of benefits and can help your body to maintain a normal and balanced state. There are no known side effects with regular consumption of Red Reishi.

Physical characteristics

The body of a red Reishi mushroom consists of three main parts:

a) The cap

b) The stem or shaft of the mushroom

c) The spores

The stem of the plant draws the nutrients from the wood on which it is growing. In nature, the mushroom flourishes mainly on the dried trunks of plum, guercus serrata or pasonia trees, while red Reishi cultivated in Japan is usually cultured by grafting the Reishi fungi onto aged Japanese oak.

Just as "we are what we eat", the quality of a red Reishi mushroom also depends heavily on the nutrients found in its habitat. The better the nutrients, the bigger the mushroom’s cap size and the higher quality the Reishi. As the red Reishi approaches maturity, spores are produced and gathered on the surface of the cap. These are eventually released into the air but because of the hard outer husks of these spores; germination is next to impossible, thus contributing to the rarity of fully-grown red Reishi mushrooms in the wild.