What Are Chaga Mushrooms and Are They Healthy?
Some types of fungus are unattractive and Chaga mushrooms are not only unattractive they are actually a parasite on birch trees that grow throughout the northern hemisphere including Connecticut. Chaga has been widely used medicinally around the world for centuries in Poland, Russia, and in North America by Native Americans. About Chaga Mushrooms Inonotus obliquus or the Chaga mushroom is usually found on standing birch trees. It is a type of shelf mushroom, bracket fungi, or polypore because it protrudes from a tree trunk. This mushroom looks like a large black crusty material that thrusts itself through the tree's bark. At this asexual stage, known as "sclerotium" the fungus resembles charcoal. It lives in this form as long as the tree lives and causes a fibrous white rot in the center cylinder of the tree. The later reproductive stage appears after the tree has died when a patch of white then brown poroid substance appears under the bark. This brown