Not worth eating
Cordyceps
Cordyceps militaris
The character that does the work
A small orange club growing out of the ground with an insect attached to the bottom.
The specimen sheet, in examination order
01Cap
A bright orange club 2 to 5 cm tall, finely pimpled, emerging from a buried insect pupa.
02Underside
None. Spore-producing flasks are embedded in the surface of the club.
03Stem, and the base
Continuous with the club, paler.
04Flesh, cut
Orange, fibrous.
05Spore print
06Where it grows
On buried moth and butterfly pupae in woodland soil and leaf litter.
When to look
Typically Jul to Oct in the northern hemisphere. Fruiting swings by weeks with rainfall and by a month or more with latitude, so this is when to look rather than when it will be there.
Northern hemisphere.
What is worth knowing about it
Worth reading the label carefully on. The species in the traditional literature is Ophiocordyceps sinensis, harvested from caterpillars in the Himalaya at extraordinary prices. Virtually every supplement sold as cordyceps is instead cultivated C. militaris, or a mycelium-on-grain product that is mostly grain. Those are three different things at three different prices.
Confused with
- Other Cordyceps and Ophiocordyceps species
In the kitchen
Not a food in any usual sense, though the cultivated clubs are sometimes used in broth.
The techniques, and why they workSold as a supplement
The most consistently over-claimed of the group. The effects seen are real but small and mostly in unfit or older participants, which is a very different claim from the performance marketing built on top of them.
The claims, graded by what the evidence actually isThis page tells you what to check. It does not tell you the mushroom in your hand is that species, and it cannot. If you are not certain, do not eat it. If you have already eaten something and feel unwell, contact a poison centre and keep an uncooked specimen.
Others in this group