What is the birch mushroom?
About the healing properties of chaga was mentioned back in the XVI century in one of the Russian medical books. However, some researchers of the valuable properties of chaga claim that it was treated by Vladimir Monomakh himself, who was trying to get rid of lip cancer. The mushroom was known in folk medicine in Siberia and Poland.
In the second half of the twentieth century, A. Solzhenitsyn wrote the novel Cancer Corps, where chaga was mentioned as an anti-cancer remedy. Despite the fact that the novel was available to very few people at that time, chaga became incredibly popular. And not without reason - it really helps with gastrointestinal diseases (ulcers, gastritis), promotes the resorption of malignant tumors, has a tonic and tonic effect.
"The correct, scientific name for the birch mushroom is Inonotus obliquus, that is, Inonotus obliquus. It got the name "birch mushroom" because it appears most often on birch trees.
The fungus enters a living tree through damage, and usually an outgrowth subsequently forms at the site of that damage. Infested wood is yellow-brown at first, then lightens to yellow-white. The development of the outgrowth causes the bark to die off, and chaga comes to light as an outgrowth with a rough rough, black-colored surface. On the inside, the birch mushroom is hard, dark brown with whitish veins. The development of chaga can take 10-20 years. Old growths on large trees can reach half a meter in diameter. As the tree dies off, the growth of chaga stops. Chaga is not like other trout mushrooms, it only develops on living trees like a tumor.
First, the bark of the tree is infected by a parasitic trout fungus. Its spores disperse through the air and land on damaged areas of tree bark. That's where they germinate. Chaga is the sterile body of the mushroom, and the fruiting body, which gives new spores, is under the bark. The hyphae of the fungus, penetrating deep into the trunks, destroy the wood and cause it to rot.
Birch fungus develops not only on birch trunks - a similar organism can be seen on alder, rowan, elm, even maple. However, for medicinal purposes, only birch chaga is used, growing on birch birch, downy birch, broad-leaved birch and Manchurian birch.
Preparing chaga
.Birch mushrooms grown in places of broken boughs and other damages are of medicinal value. Chaga is not collected from dry and withered trees. Large growths over 1 meter long are also useless. Old crumbling mushrooms have no healing power either.
For medicinal purposes, it is recommended to collect irregularly shaped birch mushroom with a black, heavily puckered and cracked surface. They often come in very large sizes - up to half a meter in length and over 40 cm in diameter - with weights of 2 to 5 kg.
The surface of the chaga is black, resinous, and the inner tissue is dark brown, very hard, and cannot be scratched with a fingernail. Toward the trunk, the mushroom tissue lightens, becomes softer, and small yellowish veins are visible. The lower surface of the chaga in contact with the trunk does not have a spongy layer like other trout mushrooms.
Chaga is often confused with other mushrooms: false trutovik, real trutovik, fringed trutovik, birch sponge.
False trutovik in color and hardness most resembles the growths of chaga, but differs from it by the regular shape of the cap. In young mushrooms, the surface of the cap is reddish or brown, with pale gray fluff, in older mushrooms - grayish-black, then black-brown, sometimes covered with deep cracks. The tissue is woody, very hard, most often reddish-brown or chestnut-brown. The fruiting bodies of false trout develop mostly on dead trees and on stumps, unlike chaga.
A true trutovik has a smooth surface of the cap, and the cap itself is grayish-gray or brownish-yellow in color, with a regular hoof-shape. And the real trutovik is attached to the tree only by the center of its upper part - it is easy to tear off, unlike chaga.
The fringed truncatula is yellow-orange or red in color and is characterized by its growing orange-red edge of the cap. Its crust in old fringed trutoviks is so impregnated with resinous substance that it is often faintly shiny.
The birch sponge looks like a kidney, its surface wrinkled and elastic.
Chaga is very difficult to separate from the tree, most often it can only be cut off with an axe. When collecting chaga, the overgrowth is cut off at the trunk, then cut off the unnecessary loose light-colored reddish-brown or yellowish part. For medicinal purposes, only the solid part of the growth is used, having cleaned it from loose mass, birch bark and wood remnants.
The best time to harvest birch mushroom is late fall and winter, when the trees are losing their leaves. Cut overgrowth on live trees with an axe under the base and then separate piece by piece. Collected chaga cut into pieces of 3-6 cm and dry in well-ventilated rooms, under canopies or in dryers at a temperature not exceeding +50 degrees Celsius.
After drying, the pieces become even harder and take on a dark brown color. Dried chaga should be stored in a dark, dry place - then it does not lose its healing properties for two years..
