The Search for an Endangered Mushroom That Could Cure Smallpox, TB and Bird Flu

Please read my blog on Reishi Mushroom under Health.
Unlocking the secrets of this fungi may be one of the most important discoveries to the future of human health. But time is running short for the endangered mushroom.
IN THE OLD-GROWTH forests of the Pacific Northwest grows a bulbous, prehistoric-looking mushroom called agarikon. It prefers to colonize century-old Douglas fir trees, growing out of their trunks like an ugly mole on a finger. When I first met Paul Stamets, a mycologist who has spent more than three decades hunting, studying, and tripping on mushrooms, he had found only two of these unusual fungi, each time by accident — or, as he might put it, divine intervention.

Stamets believes that unlocking agar i kon’s secrets may be as important to the future of human health as Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillium mold’s antibiotic properties more than 80 years ago. And so on a sunny July day, Stamets is setting off on a voyage along the coastal islands of southern British Columbia in hopes of bagging more of the endangered fungus before deforestation or climate change irreparably alters the ecosystems where it makes its home. Agarikon may be ready to save us — but we may have to save it first.
http://www.alternet.org/story/144856/the_search_for_an_endangered_mushroom_that_could_cure_smallpox,_tb_and_bird_flu?page=entire