Lijiang Cordyceps

Lijiang Cordyceps

　　　 is one of the famous products of Lijiang’s snowy plateau, also known as Cordyceps. Its nourishing and therapeutic effects surpass those of ginseng and deer antler, and it is extremely expensive, with top-quality specimens selling for nearly thirty to forty thousand yuan per kilogram. The reason Cordyceps is called “winter worm, summer grass” lies in its unique life cycle: during the highland plateau’s brief summer thaw, bat moths lay eggs on the meadow’s grasses, flowers, and leaves. These eggs hatch naturally into small larvae that burrow underground, feeding on plant roots and stems as they grow. Around this time, the Cordyceps fungus—active in the peak summer season—invades the larvae, parasitizing and sprouting fungal threads inside their bodies. From summer to winter, the fungus gradually consumes the larvae, resulting in what is known as the “winter worm.” The following summer, the fungus grows a stalk, emerging from the ground as a 4–10 cm tall purplish-red stalked structure with a pineapple-like sac at its tip—this is the “summer grass.” Once the spores inside the sac mature, they are ejected through tiny openings and carried by the wind, seeking new larvae to infect and repeat the next cycle of “winter worm, summer grass.”