Abstract: China’s traditional precious Chinese medicine Cordyceps has a unique medicinal value of ‘yin and yang with complementary’, its magical effects and growth environment and formation process determines its precious. In recent years, the price of Cordyceps has risen rapidly, which has led to the phenomenon of substandard and fake products in the market.
China’s traditional precious Chinese medicine Cordyceps has a ‘yin and yang with complementary’ unique medicinal value, its magical effects and growth environment and formation process determines its precious. In recent years, the price of Cordyceps has risen rapidly, leading to the phenomenon of substandard and fake in the market. Experts point out that there are three main determinants of the quality of Cordyceps, namely origin, odour and composition.
Firstly, in terms of origin, Cordyceps is only produced on the Tibetan Plateau, and those from other origins must not be wild and authentic Cordyceps. In terms of terrain, Cordyceps on the sunny slopes is better than on the shady slopes. In terms of production area, the best Cordyceps is from Nagchu, Tibet, especially in terms of colour and size; the worse is Sichuan Cordyceps, which is smaller in size, darker in colour, and has a longer cotyledon. In identifying these areas of wormwood can pay attention to the eye colour of the wormwood: the eye colour of the wormwood produced in Tibet Naqu is brown, the eye colour of the wormwood produced in Qinghai Yushu and Guoluo is yellow, the Sichuan grass and other areas of the wormwood produced by the red.
Secondly, in terms of odour, in general Cordyceps smells slightly fishy. Specifically, the body and tail of Cordyceps sinensis in Nagchu, Tibet, are bright and oily, with a strong ghee aroma; the smell of Cordyceps sinensis in Qinghai has a strong mushroom-like flavour; the smell of Cordyceps sinensis in Sichuan and other places of origin is extremely light.
Third, the appearance, Cordyceps consists of two parts, part of the nucleus is worm-shaped, part of the cotyledon resembling weeds, if the worm-shaped part is shrivelled, the medicinal value is reduced. The body of the worm is like a silkworm, 3 to 5 cm long, 0.3 to 0.8 cm in diameter, the surface is brownish-yellow or brownish-brown, there are 20 to 30 annuli on the body, the annuli near the head are more delicate, the head is reddish-brown, slightly expanded, and there are long ascospores, and there are 8 pairs of feet on the abdomen, and the 4 pairs of them are more obvious in the middle. From the head of the worm-shaped bacterial nucleus, the bacteria are columnar, like weeds, 4 to 7 cm long, dark brown to brown, with fine longitudinal wrinkles, pliable, not easy to break, the mature zoospores from the middle of the stalk until the end of the dilated, forming a fertile part, a little thicker than the stalk, the boundaries are obvious, the top of the zoospores with a sterile tip of about 0.3 to 0.6 cm long.
