Medicinal Mushrooms

The waxycap Hygrocybe marchii (Bres.) Singer.
  Credit: Eric Steinert
  Source: Wikimedia Commons, GFDL license

Classification

Kingdom Fungi
Phylum Basidiomycota
Class Basidiomycetes
Order Agaricales
Family Tricholomataceae
Genus Hygrocybe

Hygrocybe coccinea var. marchii (Bres.) Krieglst.
  in Krieglsteiner, Ahnert, Endt, Enderle & Ostrow, Beitr. Kenntn. Pilze Mitteleur. 13: 31 (2000)
Hygrophorus marchii Bres.
  Iconographia Mycologica 7: pl. 343 (1928)
Pseudohygrocybe marchii (Bres.) Kovalenko
  Mikol. Fitopatol. 22(3): 208 (1988)

Waxy cap
Hygrophore de March (French)
Kerbrandiger Orangesaftling (German)
Aranysárga nedűgomba (Hungarian)

Cap: 2-4 cm diameter, red or orange-yellow, convex, becoming flattened or centrally depressed in age; radially fibrillose; flesh yellow.
Stem: 3-6 cm tall x 0.3-0.6 cm diameter; orange-yellow, more pallid towards the base; flesh yellow and stuffed.
Gills: adnate to decurrent, broad, distant; pallid when young, becoming more orange in age, yellowish at the edges.
Spores: hyaline, smooth, ellipsoid, non-amyloid, 6-10 x 4-6 µm.
Spore print: white.
Odor and taste: not distinctive.
Edibility: inedible.
Habitat: found in small troops among short grass; late summer to fall; uncommon.

Medicinal properties
Antitumor effects

Polysaccharides extracted from the mycelial culture of H. marchii and administered intraperitoneally into white mice at a dosage of 300 mg/kg inhibited the growth of Sarcoma 180 and Ehrlich solid cancers by 90% and 100%, respectively (Ohtsuka et al., 1973).

Links

Roger's Mushrooms

References

Ohtsuka S, Ueno S, Yoshikumi C, Hirose F, Ohmura Y, Wada T, Fujii T, Takahashi E.
Polysaccharides having an anticarcinogenic effect and a method of producing them from species of Basidiomycetes.
UK Patent 1331513, 26 September 1973.

Last updated: 17-Aug-2008

This entry was posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 6:07 pm and is filed under Anti-tumor, Medicinal Effects, Medicinal Mushrooms. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.