Polypores Or Shelf Mushrooms
About
Polypores Or Shelf Mushrooms live deep in the old growth forests of Washington and Oregon, grow as large as six feet in diameter and arecharacterized by shelf-like, woody conks with porous undersides from which specialized cells, known as basidia, produce spores.
Information
Physical Description
Polypores are a group of tough, leathery poroid mushrooms similar to boletes, but typically lacking a distinct stalk. The technical distinction between the two types of mushrooms is that polypores do not have the spore-bearing tissue continuous along the entire underside of the mushroom.
Selecting and Buying
Preparation and Use
Two medicinal mushroom polypores in use today are Ganoderma lucidum (Reishi or Lingzhi) and Trametes versicolor. Beyond their traditional use in herbal medicine, contemporary research has suggested many applications polypores for the treatment of illnesses related to the immune system and cancer recovery.
In studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, some polypore mushrooms have been found to be useful in treating a wide variety of ailments, including bacterial infections, viral infections, cancer, allergies, diabetes mellitus, and neurological problems