It's difficult to say which makes a greater visual impression: the young form of this bracket fungus or the mature one. Our first encounter with Ganoderma lingzhi took place about eight years ago, somewhere on the ridge of a mountain. They were glossy, almost lacquered shoots emerging from layers of forest litter—like knotty, thick twigs of dark, black-brown color, with tops painted white. A vague guess turned out to be correct: these were the famous mushrooms that bestow longevity and health. Since then, our eyes have had no trouble catching the familiar silhouette of even the tiniest lingzhi shoot against the backdrop of fallen leaves or on the remains of rotten trees, not to mention its classic adult form.

The mature forms of Ganoderma lingzhi, resembling angry cobras in a defensive posture, vary in color and size. They can be long-legged and slender, with a large fan-shaped cap, or stocky and short, with a smaller cap. Almost black, bluish-gray, reddish, brown... Their diversity depends on the soil composition and, even more so, on light, humidity, and temperature. In particular, the length of the "stem" depends on the carbon dioxide content in the air: the higher it is, the longer the stem. But of course, all these bracket fungi share one thing in common: a dense structure of the stem, and often the cap, resembling wood more than the flesh of a mushroom.