House dried: 2021-2022
Source: Mountain Rose Herbs Organic + Kosher Origin: Canada COMMON NAME Standardized: chaga Other: Clinker polypore BOTANICAL NAME Inonotus obliquus (Pers.: Fr.) Pilat Plant Family: Hymenochaetaceae OVERVIEW Now certified organic! Chaga is a fungus, a parasitic carpophore that looks like the charred remains of burned wood on the side of a birch tree (sometimes growing on Elm and Alder, but Birch is its favorite). It is not the fruiting body of the fungus, but a sclerotia or mass of mycelium. The parasite enters the tree through a ‘wound’ in the bark of a mature tree. It then grows under the bark until it erupts in a deeply cracked, black charcoal like extension. It usually takes another 5-7 years for it to fully mature, at which point it falls to the forest floor, most times killing the host tree in the process. Chaga has been a part of folk medicine in Russia, Poland, China and numerous Baltic countries for many centuries. It was documented by Chinese herbalist Shen Nong in his herba
