Cordyceps

John Holliday, Matt Cleaver, Mojca Tajnik, JosephM. Cerecedes, and Solomon P.Wasser

June 1, 2010

 BACKGROUND

Diversity and Artificial Cultivation
There are currently more than 680 documented species
of Cordyceps, found on all six inhabited continents and in
many climatic zones and habitats, and occurring parasitically
or commensally with a range of hosts (2–3). Due
to the rarity and high prices of the wild collected variety,
attempts have long been made to cultivate C. sinensis. By
the mid 1980s, the majority of C. sinensis available in the
world’s marketplace was artificially cultivated (4).
Many companies now produce artificially cultivated
C. sinensis products, both from the mycelium as well as
from the fruit bodies. The increase in supply has given
rise to variations in purity and quality, creating a situation
in which there are a large number of counterfeit and
adulterated products being sold (3). Recently, there have
been introduced, new methods for assaying the quality of
Cordyceps spp. products (5). The large variations in quality
found in cultivated C. sinensis has lead many consumers
to believe the wild collected variety is medicinally better
than the cultivated type. But with new advances in
biotechnology, this is rapidly changing (6).

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