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Excerpts from Jim Conrad's
Naturalist Newsletter
Entry issued on August 30, 2019, from Mérida, Yucatán, MÉXICO
GANODERMA OERSTEDII
Needing to visit Mérida an hour west of Tepakán, while wandering the backstreets I meet the polypore fungus shown below, growing parasitically on an above-ground root of a leguminous tree:
It's tough, almost woody, with its rainbowed top shiny as if shellacked. It's a member of the genus Ganoderma, whose species are poorly understood in the tropics, but this species often it's known as GANODERMA OERSTEDII. The most famous Ganoderma is G. lucidum, often known as Reishi, and sold as a powerful traditional cure for several problems. Other Ganoderma species also are regarded as traditional medicines, including our Mérida species, and show promise for "broad-spectrum application for the treatment of cancer," as indicated in a review of a scientific paper entitled " Ganoderma: A Cancer Immunotherapy Review."