Cordyceps military - description, where it grows, poisonous mushroom

Cordyceps is a military outwardly very unusual mushroom. You can not see it quite often, as it belongs to a rare species. But having met, you can immediately recognize the military bearing - it seems that he is ready for battle, wearing a bright orange uniform. Indeed, a real fighter hiding in the forest.

What is he - sporiferous military cordyceps

This forest resident belongs to the ergot family, the genus of cordyceps. Its appearance is somewhat different from other fellow mushrooms.

The fruit body is simple, but there are specimens with a branched shape at the base. It can grow straight or curved. The form itself is different, it can be cylindrical or club-shaped, elliptical or spindle-shaped. Has a height of the fruiting body from 1 to 8 cm, and a thickness of up to 0.5-0.7 cm. The apex is blunted, its thickness is less than that of the leg.

The color of this fungus is very noticeable, as it has all shades of bright orange, but will always have a lighter color before peritations. The pedicle can be smooth or furrowed, pubescent, and subtle rhizomorphs can surround it. In the central part, the stroma is colorless, fibrous.

Peritia, when the mushroom is quite young, semi-submerged. But with age they come to the surface more and more, as a result, only the base remains submerged. They are mainly crowded, ovoid, and dot the stems of the fungal warty part of the fungus with dots of their stomata.

Colorless ascospores have a threadlike shape, their thickness is up to 1.5 microns, they have many partitions that break up into cells resembling very elongated cylinders.

The pulp of the mushroom with a fibrous texture, the color is whitish, the smell and taste are not expressed. The size of the cordyceps of the military, the shape of the spores and the color depend on the conditions of the terrain in which they live, as well as on the size of the insect on which they parasitize.

Where is the warlike mushroom hiding

Of all the species, military cordyceps is the most common. Its homeland can be considered many regions of Europe and Asia, America and Africa, warm zones and characterized by a more severe climate, for example, the tundra. It prefers mainly forest areas and places with a high moisture content. Due to massive deforestation, its habitat over time turned out to be disturbed.

But the mushroom finds the opportunity to continue its genus due to one amazing ability: for the winter it goes as a mushroom, but wakes up as an extremely dangerous predator. Once the caterpillar crawls to it, it immediately finds itself in a terrible trap, since the mushroom has adapted to deftly throw out spores that accurately pierce the unfortunate chitin. But they do not manifest themselves in any way until the fall. When the time comes for the caterpillar to change its appearance, becoming a butterfly, it seeks a place in the ground, taking the form of a chrysalis. And here, in the soil, the mushroom feels like a master in a foreign body. Its active development begins, it uses for its own life primarily the insect protein, which will never be able to fly up. The dead body does not turn into a beautiful butterfly, but into a mummy through which the mushroom reaches up.

Many people witnessed such a strange picture: from the head, which once belonged to a caterpillar, an orange process with a thin leg is drawn.

This fungus is dangerous for the larvae and pupae of many representatives, which are related to Lepidoptera, as well as for adults of dipterans. The fruiting time of the fungus falls at the beginning of June, and ends in October.

To help sick people

It was proved by scientists that the nutritional value of this mushroom is completely zero. But his special valuable qualities were discovered, which they immediately began to use in oriental medicine.

Modern scientific advanced technologies have helped to figure out what is the secret of a unique plant. It turned out that this is truly a pantry of many micro and macro elements, amino acids, enzymes, acids, vitamins necessary for maintaining human health.

True, official medicine does not want to consider a mushroom a medicinal product, however, numerous nutritional supplements and preparations compiled according to old recipes help many people.

For example, the enzymes present in the composition establish metabolic processes, help other useful substances to be produced in the right quantities. And polysaccharides block the development of cancer cells.