Chaga: The "Charred" Fungus That Isn't Really a Mushroom at All
Reading time: 6 minutes Chaga breaks almost every rule in this series. It doesn't look like a mushroom — it looks like a lump of burnt charcoal growing out of a birch tree. It isn't a fruiting bod...
Shiitake: The Mushroom You've Probably Eaten and the Compound That Made Scientists Take It Seriously
Shiitake: The Mushroom You've Probably Eaten and the Compound That Made Scientists Take It Seriously Reading time: 6 minutes Of all the mushrooms in a functional blend, Shiitake is the one you've ...
Maitake: The "Dancing Mushroom" That Foragers Once Traded for Silver
Reading time: 6 minutes There's a Japanese legend that foragers who found this mushroom in the wild would dance with joy — because it was so rare and so valuable it could be traded for its weight ...
Reading time: 7 minutes Cordyceps has one of the strangest origin stories in the natural world, one of the most interesting research profiles in the endurance space and one of the most misleading...
Reishi: The "Mushroom of Immortality" and What Two Thousand Years of Use Actually Tells Us
Reading time: 6 minutes Few mushrooms carry as much mythology as Reishi. In traditional Chinese medicine it was called lingzhi a name tied to spiritual potency and longevity — and it was reserved...
Lion's Mane: The Mushroom That Looks Like a Waterfall and Reads Like Science Fiction
Reading time: 6 minutes If you've spent any time researching functional mushrooms, you've met Lion's Mane. It's the one that gets people curious — partly because of how it looks (like...