#CauliflowerMushroom - #SparassisCrispa.
One of my fave #edible & #medicinal #WildMushrooms. It's found in many places around the world, including forests on #VancouverIsland.
We #forage for these wild #mushrooms & use it in making some soups & stir fry dishes.

It's used often in #traditional #Chinese #medicine #TCM because it contains active #pharmacological ingredients. In order to study its medicinal value better, the genomic sequence of S. crispa was published in Oct 2018.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6207663

Dry weight of the #basidiocarp was found to contain up to 43.6% #BetaGlucan, which was approved for the treatment of #cancer in #Japan & recommended for #COVID19 patients to overcome #inflammation.

Experiments suggest that S. crispa contains chemicals that may stimulate the #ImmuneSystem & has many #biological properties including: #AntiTumor, #antiviral activity (reverse transcriptase inhibitory activity), #neuroprotection, #cardioprotection, #AntiInflammation, #hyperlipidemia, #AntiDiabetic medication, #antimicrobial compounds, & methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus #MRSA.