Medicinal Monday -The Long Forgotten Tale of a Sacred Fungus

Haploporus odorus is a sacred fungus in traditional Native American Culture of the Northern Plains. The Blackfoot, Blood, Cree, and other northern plains tribes used this mushroom as a component of sacred objects symbolizing spiritual power and as a medicine.

About Haploporus odorus

This perennial hoof-shaped polypore mushroom also called the diamond willow and found in British Columbia and Northern Europe. It is a rare shelf fungus that forms a large white perennial growth or sporocarps on the trunk of old living willow trees. In North America, it is most often found on Diamond Willow trees. The growth or sporocarp can be quite large and the top is smooth and pale tan to brown. Underneath this mushroom is white and is covered in tiny pores. Each year a new layer of pores emerges. As the mushroom ages, it becomes greyish and crusty. One way to identify this polypore is by its' strong sweet smell of anise that can be detected from more than ten feet away.  Even after this fungus is dried, it retains its' scent for many years. This growth causes a white rot in the wood of the willow tree.

Ceremonial and Medicinal Uses

The Indigenous Peoples of the northern American plains used Haploporus odorus to ornament sacred robes, necklaces, and other cultural things as protection and to ward off sickness. It was so scared that it was also used as an adornment on sacred war robes and scalp necklaces.  Many northern plain tribes believe that this polypore has healing and spiritual properties. Unfortunately, much of its use has been lost over the years due to misidentification. Part of the reason for this is because artifacts made from this mushroom were thought to be made from cottonwood roots. After extensive research, it was found that some museum objects thought to be wood were actually made from this polypore. 

This fungus was also a component of medicine bundles used for protection against illness. It is said that medicinally Haploporus odorus was used by the northern plain Native American communities to stop bleeding. An infusion was made to treat diarrhea and dysentery and when combined with other mushrooms it was used to treat coughs. The mushroom was sometimes burned and inhaled as a perfumed healing smoke.

Did You Know...

The modern Woods Cree use this mushroom as a smudge for healing, to expel bad influences, and to call the spirits.

In Canada, some Native tribes burn the mushroom and use it as a kind of trance-inducing incense that allows them to communicate with the dead.

Common names of this mushroom include diamond willow, doftticka, nordlig aniskjuke, aniseed, bracket, and puffball.

The Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation in Canada (2015), whose traditional territory encompasses 121,000 square miles of central Alberta, in 20 years of searching for this particular fungus, noted that “very few (estimated as less than 1%) stands of diamond willow actually have the fungus”. For more information click here.

In North America, there have been 20 records from British Columbia with only four fungi of this type reported in the past twenty years.

In Europe, it is most commonly found in northeastern Sweden, Finland, Northwestern Russia, and a few locations in southeast Norway, Estonia, and Poland.