Reishi or Ling Zhi – Ganoderma lucidum
Solomon P. Wasser
Institute of Evolution, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel
INTRODUCTION
Ganoderma lucidum (reishi mushroom, Ling Zhi) has
been an economically important species, particularly
in the Far East countries (China, Japan, Korea, etc.),
for over 4000 years. It is widely grown on a commercial
scale and is commonly purchased for its medicinal and
spiritual properties.
NAME AND GENERAL DESCRIPTION
In Latin, lucidum means shiny or brilliant and aptly
describes this mushroom’s fruiting body, which has a
modeled, sculptured, varnished appearance. The Chinese and Koreans know it as Ling Zhi (mushroom of
herb and immortality), whereas the Japanese call this
mushroom reishi or mannentake (10,000 year mushroom). The virtues of G. lucidum extracts, handed
down from generation to generation, include it as a
‘‘cancer cure’’ and a symbol of happy augury, good
fortune, good health, longevity, and even immortality.
Beginning with the Yuan Dynasty (1280–1368 A.D.),
G. lucidum has been endlessly represented in art—in
paintings, carvings of jade and deer’s antlers, furniture
and carpet designs, balustrades, jewelry, women’s hair
combs, perfume bottles—in short, wherever an artistic
urge found an outlet. The earliest mention of Ling Zhi
was in the era of the first emperor of China, Shinghuang of the Ch’in Dynasty (221–207 B.C.). Subsequently, depictions of this fungus proliferated through
Chinese literature and art. The mushroom is known
by many in North America and Europe as one of
the ‘‘artist’s conk’’ fungi (the true artist conk is
Ganoderma applanatum).
A detailed description of the reishi mushroom and
its taxonomy can be found in Refs.[3,10] (Fig. 1).
