On the trunks of trees, you can sometimes see peculiar growths. They have different, often quite bizarre shapes and picturesque colors. The inhabitants generally call these outgrowths polypore, sometimes without even realizing that this formation is directly related to fungi.
There are several varieties of wood mushrooms. Some of them prefer to grow on the trunks of deciduous trees: birch, mountain ash, maple, alder, elm or ash. Birch is a special priority as a place of growth, so the mushroom was named tinder birch, or birch mushroom, birch chaga, and more often just chaga. Its biological name is a tinder funnel. The biological name focuses on the structural features of its fruiting body. Biologists call that growth that we see on a tree trunk a fruit body.
Birch tinder: structure
At the beginning of growth, the fruit body of the fungus has a rounded shape. As it grows, it changes, becoming wrong and assuming various bizarre shapes. Creative people use tinderware for making souvenirs and various crafts, which is quite justified.
The fruit body of a birch fungus has a layered structure:
- The outer layer of the fungus is painted by nature in brown colors with black shades. The picturesque coloration is enhanced by the resinousness of its outer surface, giving it shine and peculiar convexities or bumps, in the place of which cracks form over time.
- The middle layer consists of many microscopic tubes located at a slight angle to the outer layer. This angle determines the slope of the body of the fungus or its slanting, reflected in the biological name of the chaga. At the break, this part has a granular structure. At the initial stage of chaga growth, the middle layer has a light, almost white color. Over time, it acquires brown shades and hardens very quickly, becoming similar in structure and hardness to a cork.
- The inner layer of the birch tinder is reddish-brown with yellow streaks.
Chaga mycelium permeates wood wood tissue . The fungus feeds on its juices, penetrating the cells and thereby destroying them, eventually turning the plant into red-brown rot. Therefore, chaga is rightly classified as parasites.
Like all mushrooms, birch fungus tinder fungus reproduces by spores. They ripen on the lower surface of the fruiting body. Spores are carried by the wind and, falling into cracks in the bark of other trees, quickly germinate.
Sometimes several spores “root” in one tree, from which fruiting bodies develop. They can be cascaded, rows, stairs climbing up the trunk.
The area of ​​infection with a birch tinder can be quite large. The plant that "sheltered" the spores is doomed. Thus, the presence on the trunk of a birch or other deciduous tree, chaga, despite its external attractiveness, is far from a positive sign. However, despite the destructive properties of the birch fungus, it cannot be called a useless creation of nature.
The healing properties of birch mushroom
Scientists have discovered a lot of useful substances that contains birch tinder. The properties of the fungus are medicinal, this explains the long-standing use of chaga by traditional healers. They used powdered fruit bodies to make tinctures, decoctions, and teas.
These treatment solutions:
- work as choleretic and diuretics;
- help restore healthy joints;
- used in the treatment of female and male diseases;
- lotions and compresses treat skin diseases and the consequences of frostbite.
Teas and inhalations from a birch tinder help restore voice, treat inflammation in the larynx.
Infusions stabilize metabolic processes, so they will be useful for those who have declared war on extra pounds or, conversely, are trying to get better. In addition, they contribute to the restoration of intestinal microflora, reduce the severity of pain, tone up and increase immunity.
Not so long ago, scientists found that the substances contained in the birch tinder inhibit the growth and development of tumor cells, especially at the initial stage of their development. Therefore, tincture from chaga is now widely used in oncology.
Features of collecting chaga
For medicinal purposes, only those fruiting bodies of the birch chaga that are grown on living trees and are not old are used. The old chaga crumbles.
All mushrooms are able to concentrate harmful substances from the environment. The birch tinder is no exception. Therefore, do not prepare chaga in environmentally disadvantaged places.
The ideal time for collecting birch mushroom is from the beginning of August to the end of October. At this time, it is as saturated with nutrients as possible.
Mushroom Tincture Recipe
For the preparation of alcohol tinctures, a birch tinder is used. The recipes are simple and proven over the centuries.
- Chaga is washed, cleaned, thoroughly dried and ground into powder.
- The powder is placed in alcohol or vodka using 150 ml of liquid per 5 g.
- The solution is kept for two weeks in a cold and dark place.
For the treatment of tumors, the finished tincture is recommended to be taken three times a day, one tablespoon. For other diseases, a teaspoon with the same frequency of administration will be enough.
Tincture is taken in courses of 3-4 months. The duration of admission and the amount of tincture for admission should be discussed with your doctor.
Do not confuse chaga with other types of polypore. The birch tinder fungus is easily confused with other tree fungi, for example, with false or real tinder fungi, unsuitable for medicinal purposes.
False tinder fungus also grows on birches. True, he just prefers dried, fallen, obsolete trees. This fact is one of the signals indicating that you have a fake chaga.
False tinder fungus is easily recognized by the shape of the fruiting body. It looks like a slightly flattened hoof with a convex upper and flat lower surfaces. The upper surface is soft and velvety, with a pattern: dark brown or brown circles on a gray background.
Another “twin brother” of the birch tinder is a real tinder. It has a semicircular shape with a smooth surface in gray or brown. A real tinder fungus is attached to the tree trunk with its central part and therefore it is easily, unlike the birch chaga, separated from it.
Nature is generous in its nuances. Her fantasies have no limits, just as there is no limit to the surprise of her wisdom: the undoubted harm of the tinder fungus for trees is fully compensated by its benefits.