Two Birch Tree Mushrooms with Old History - 25 Northeast Fungi - Episode 2
Channel: BASED in Maine
Date: 18/07/2020

Episode 2 covers two very distinct and easy-to-identify medicinal fungi that both grow on the White Birch and other Birch trees... Considered "circumboreal" they are found across the Northern Hemisphere and have very ancient human history with over 5000 years of folk use now being validated through modern scientific research. Timestamps below and in Comments:

0:00 Birch Trees are the Setting
0:30 Fungi and the Nutrient Cycle
1:50 "Birch Polypore" or "Razor Strop" (Fomitopsis Betulina)
2:50 Polypores, their definition and habitat
4:04 "Otzi the Iceman" Neolithic mummy found in the Alps with 2 Birch Mushrooms
6:26 Chaga, aka "Birch Canker" or "Cinder Conk" (Inonotus Obliquus)
8:36 Thoughts on Commercializing Wild Gathered Chaga
9:30 The 3 Methods of Extracting Medicinal Compounds

Music Licensed Via Epidemic Sound
"White Waves" by Lama House
"New Ambitions" by Trevor Kowalski

Photo Credits (Licensed via Creative Commons - Attribution: CC 3.0 and CC 4.0): 
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

"Chaga on Birch": Tomas Cekanavicius
"Chaga on Alder": Olli Niemitalo 
"Large Chaga Infection": Beentree
"Confluence Point 47N 11E Alps": Michael Karavanov
"Polypore Pores": Garnhami
"Piptoporus Betulinus Variation in Size and Color": Henk Monster
"Young Birch Fungus": Dominicus Johannes Bergsma
Other sources include screenshots from: PubMed, Wikipedia in the Public Domain

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