Hericium, lion's mane, the wise mushroom

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The quiet kingdom — roots, polypores, mycelium. The resilience of the living, ready for every day.

Lion's mane, Hericium erinaceus, hangs from the trunk of old broadleaf trees, oak, beech, walnut, as a cascade of white spines that yellow with age. Fresh and pan-fried it tastes delicate, close to crab; as a tea it is mild, earthy, almost marine.

Three peoples, three names

In China it is houtou, 猴頭, "monkey head": the shaggy cascade made the scholar think of a tree-dwelling animal. Rare in the wild, it was long a luxury of the imperial court, ranked with wild ginseng and wild reishi, a treasure for banquets and offerings of long life.

In Japan it is called yamabushitake, the mushroom of the yamabushi, the mountain ascetics of Shugendō, who fasted, walked for days and meditated under icy waterfalls. Their ritual robe, the suzukake, is worn with white pompoms, and the fringed mushroom looks just like them. Our sources do not show first-hand that the yamabushi ate it: we pass the name on as a heritage of language, without inventing a ritual for it.

Further away, the Ainu folklore of Hokkaidō saw it as an offering of the forest spirits, and across the Pacific the Cherokee and other peoples of the Eastern Woodlands knew a neighbouring species, Hericium americanum.

Modern cultivation, since the mid-20th century, has turned this emperor's treasure into an everyday mushroom.

Fruiting body, mycelium, hot water

On the market, mycelium grown on grain is often milled with its grain: the powder then holds a lot of starch, and starch counts in a "polysaccharides" figure. We work with the fruiting body, with no filler, and a declared beta-glucan content.

Our extract is made with hot water only. The compounds we look for in the fruiting body dissolve in it; the erinacines, which sit in the mycelium, would call for alcohol, and our extract does not aim at them.

Lion's mane at the House

• The powder (100 g, 200 g): about one teaspoon, 3 to 5 g, in a warm drink, plant milk, water just off the boil at around 80 °C, or a smoothie, in the morning.
• The 8:1 powdered extract (45 g): fruiting body, hot water, at least 18% beta-glucans declared, from a certified organic supply chain. About 0.5 g, once or twice a day, in water, tea or warm food.

Asian tradition works these mushrooms with gentle heat: they simmer, they never boil hard. The simplest gesture is the morning one, a spoonful in the cup, repeated each day. These are markers of use.

The DAILY way

What ties these lineages together is one way of doing things: a companion you take every day, over time, without waiting for an event. A habit kept, noted in a notebook the way you keep a promise.

Precautions

• Known mushroom allergy: abstain.
• Anticoagulants, planned surgery: medical advice first, data are limited.
• Autoimmune disease: medical advice, data are insufficient.
• Pregnancy and breastfeeding: abstain, there is not enough data.
• A few people describe unusual restlessness or low mood after several weeks of continuous use, which passes when they stop. If so, stop and observe.

When in doubt, your doctor before the mushroom.

Sources

• Traditional names: houtou (China), yamabushitake and suzukake (Japan).
• Our supplier's technical sheet: 8:1 lion's mane extract, hot-water extraction, declared beta-glucan content.

Lion's Manefrån 17,50 €Se →