Updated
Chicken of the woods
Bright orange shelves on oak, eaten as a meat substitute. Also one of the commoner causes of stomach upset among edible species, which the foraging literature is clear about.
Laboratory work
Where it stands: 1 randomised trial, published in 2014.
What it is taken for
One tile per use. The line under each is how far the evidence for that use actually got, counted rather than argued.
What it has been tried for, and how far that has got
One row per use. The label is counted rather than argued — it is set by how many randomised trials and posted results exist for that use, and nothing else. How that is worked out.
| Use | How far it has got | Trials | With a result | Randomised, published | Reviews | Commonly taken for it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bacterial infection | Laboratory work | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | yes |
| Immune function | Laboratory work | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | yes |
Commonly taken for immune function, bacterial infection. The work there is still laboratory and animal work — often a great deal of it — and the step into a trial in people has not been taken yet.
The compounds the research names
Formula and mass from PubChem. Naming a compound is not a claim that it does anything in a person.
C31H50O3
C19H22O6
What it looks like in the field
Research-grade observations, each by a different photographer. Every one links to the record it came from.
In the kitchen
Mild, lemony, with a texture genuinely close to chicken breast when young.
Only the soft outer growth is worth taking; the older inner flesh goes chalky. Cook it thoroughly and start with a small amount.
One of the commonest causes of stomach upset among edible species, and it upsets some people even well cooked. Specimens from yew, eucalyptus and conifers are best avoided.
Where it has been recorded, and when it fruits
128,001 verified occurrence records with coordinates, from GBIF. This is where people have recorded it, which follows where recorders live as much as where the fungus grows — read the shape, not the ranking.
| Netherlands | 32,027 | |
| United States | 31,884 | |
| United Kingdom | 12,915 | |
| Germany | 11,213 | |
| Sweden | 9,153 | |
| Russia | 4,820 | |
| Canada | 2,842 | |
| Denmark | 2,523 | |
| Norway | 2,206 | |
| France | 2,196 | |
| Austria | 2,101 | |
| Belgium | 1,748 |
Most records fall in Sep. Northern-hemisphere recorders dominate the dataset, so a southern population would not show here.
iNaturalist separately holds 70,646 research-grade observations of it.
What has been reported going wrong
No voluntary adverse-event report to the US Food and Drug Administration names a product by this name. That is an absence of reports, not a demonstration of safety: these are the products least likely to be reported on, because nobody is required to.
The newest randomised trials and reviews
Indexed in Europe PMC. Titles and journals only — follow the link to read the paper where the publisher allows it.
| Year | Study | Journal | Kind | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Control of oral human papillomavirus (HPV) by medicinal mushrooms, Trametes versicolor and Ganoderma lucidum: a prelimin | Int J Med Mushrooms | Randomised trial | 13 |