The fear of eating wild poisonous mushrooms has been inherited from as far back as ancient Rome and Greece where their use was first documented in association with political assassinations. There isn't a great deal of written documentation of how Native Americans used different types of mushrooms because of this fear and also because many Native American communities were displaced far from their original settlements. This relocation meant the loss of valuable mushroom knowledge. One mushroom, known as deadman's leather had several interesting uses.
About Laricifomes Officinalis
Laricifomes Officinalis, a medicinal polypore also known as deadman's leather is a wood-decay fungus that causes brown heart rot on conifers, particularly Douglas-fir. It is found in Europe, Asia, and North America. The fruit or conk of this hoof-shaped mushroom is large and can grow up to two feet long. When it is young the outer layers are soft and yellow and as they mature they become white and chalky. The taste of the conk is extremely bitter.
Medicinal & Spiritual Uses
The conks are important medicinally and spiritually to indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America such as the Tlingit, Haida, and the Tsimshian. They referred to this mushroom as the "bread of ghosts" and carved the fruiting bodies and marked the graves of tribal shamans with them. The Laricifomes Officinalis was called "Jibi-Jabosiganug" by the Ojibway, meaning "spirits of purgation-fungus." The conk was dried and then ground up into a fine powder and used as a purgative especially when treating pneumonia.
Did You Know...
The fruit of this mushroom known as a conk or a quinine conk because of its bitter taste was once collected for the production of medicinal quinine.
The ancient Greeks used this to treat consumption according to the writings of Pedanius Dioscorides in 65 AD.
This fungus has antibacterial properties and can live up to 75 years.
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