Daning Lingzhi

Daning Lingzhi

　　Daning Lingzhi

　　Lingzhi, also known as Ganoderma lucidum or the "divine mushroom," "herb of immortality," or "auspicious fungus," refers to the entire plant of either Ganoderma lucidum or Ganoderma sinense from the Polyporaceae family. According to China’s first pharmacological text, the “Shennong Bencao Jing” (The Divine Farmer’s Materia Medica), lingzhi comes in six varieties—purple, red, blue, yellow, white, and black—all with a sweet and mild nature. Lingzhi is native to East Asia, and ancient Chinese believed that lingzhi had the power to grant immortality and revive the dead, thus regarding it as a divine herb.

　　Lingzhi is mainly distributed in China, the Korean Peninsula, and Japan. It typically grows in humid and dimly lit mountain forests, often on decaying trees or their roots. The term "lingzhi" first appeared in the Eastern Han Dynasty in Zhang Heng’s “Rhapsody on the Western Capital”: “Soaking stone fungi in deep ravines, washing lingzhi with crimson stems.”