Trutovik birch: features of the fungus, healing properties

Sometimes on the trunks of trees you can see peculiar growths. They have a different, often rather bizarre form and a picturesque color. Philistines collectively call these growths trutovikami, sometimes without even realizing that this education is directly related to fungi.

There are several varieties of wood fungi. Some of them prefer to grow on the trunks of deciduous trees: birch, rowan, maple, alder, elm or ash. A special priority in the quality of the place of growth is the birch, so the mushroom was named birch, or birch mushroom, birch chaga, and often just chaga. Its biological name is tapered. The biological name emphasizes the peculiarity of the structure of its fruiting body. The biologists call the fruit body the growth that we see on the tree trunk.

Trutovik birch: building

At the beginning of growth the fruiting body has a rounded shape. As it grows, it changes, becoming irregular and taking various bizarre outlines. Creative people use trutoviki for making souvenirs and various crafts, which is completely justified.

The fruiting body of a birch fungus has a layered structure:

1. The outer layer of the fungus is painted in nature in brown with black shades. Painting color enhances the resininess of its outer surface, giving it shine and peculiar bulges or knolls, in the place of which cracks develop over time.
2. The middle layer consists of a multitude of 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. On the fracture, this part has a granular structure. At the initial stage of growth of chaga, the middle layer has a light, almost white color. Over time, it acquires brown shades and very hardens, becoming similar in structure and hardness to the cork.
3. The inner layer of the birch tinder is reddish-brown in color with yellow veins.

Chrysanthemum chaga pervades the wood tree tissue . The fungus eats its juices, penetrating into the cells and thereby destroying them, eventually turning the plant into red-brown rot. Therefore, chaga is quite rightly referred to as parasites.

Like all mushrooms, the birch fungus reproduces spores. They ripen on the lower surface of the fruit body. Spores are carried by the wind and, falling into the cracks of the bark of other trees, quickly sprout.

Sometimes a tree spores several spores, of which fruit bodies develop. They can be located cascaded, rows, stairs up the trunk.

The area of infection with a birch tinder can be quite large. The plant that "sheltered" disputes is doomed. Thus, the presence on the trunk of a birch or other deciduous tree, chaga, despite its external attractiveness, is by no means a positive sign. However, despite the destructive properties of the birch fungus, it can not be called a useless creation of nature.

Therapeutic properties of birch mushroom

Scientists have discovered a lot of useful substances, which contains birch tinder. The properties of the fungus are medicinal, this explains the long-standing use of chaga by folk healers. They used a powdered body to prepare tinctures, decoctions and teas.

These medicinal solutions are:

• Work as choleretic and diuretics;
• Help restore health to sick joints;
• Are used in the treatment of female and male diseases;
• Lotions and compresses treat skin diseases and the consequences of frostbite.

Teas and inhalations from the birch tritium contribute to the restoration of the voice, treat inflammation in the larynx.

Infusions stabilize metabolic processes, so they will be useful for those who declared the war excess kilograms or, conversely, trying to get better. In addition, they contribute to the restoration of the intestinal microflora, reduce the severity of the pain syndrome, tone up and enhance immunity.

Not so long ago, scientists found that the substances contained in the birch tinder hold up 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 therapeutic purposes, only those fruit bodies of birch chaga are used that have grown on living trees and are not old. The old chaga is crumbling.

All fungi are able to concentrate in themselves harmful substances from the environment. Trutovik birch is no exception. Therefore, do not prepare chaga in ecologically unfavorable places.

The ideal time for collecting birch mushrooms is the period from the beginning of August to the end of October. At this time, he is full of useful substances.

Mushroom tincture recipe

For preparation of alcoholic tinctures use a tinder birch. Recipes are simple and tested for centuries.

• The bowls are washed, cleaned, thoroughly dried and ground into powder.
• The powder is placed in alcohol or vodka, using 5 grams of 150 ml of liquid.
• The solution is kept for two weeks in a cold and dark place.

To treat tumors, ready tincture is recommended to take three times a day for one tablespoon. With other diseases, a teaspoon will be enough with the same frequency of reception.

Tincture take courses for 3-4 months. Duration of admission and the amount of tincture to take is better discussed with the attending physician.

Do not confuse the chaga with other species of trutovikov. The birch mushroom fungus can be easily confused with other tree fungi, for example with false or real trutnov, unfit for therapeutic purposes.

A false tinderpot also grows on birches. True, he just more like dried, fallen, obsolete trees. This fact is one of the signals that say that before you is an unreal chaga.

A false tinder is easily recognized by the shape of the fruit body. It resembles a slightly flattened hoof with a convex upper and a lower flat surface. The upper surface is soft and velvety, with a pattern: dark brown or brown circles on a gray background.

Another "twin brother" of a birch triton is a real trumpet. It has a semicircular shape with a smooth surface of gray or brown hue. This trutovik is attached to the trunk of the tree with its central part and therefore it is easy, unlike the birch chaga, to separate from it.

Nature is generous in nuances. Her fantasies do not have a limit, as there is no limit and the surprise of her wisdom: the undoubted harm of the tinder for the trees is fully compensated by its use.