Laccocephalum mylittae
Sclerotium of 'native bread', Laccocephalum mylittae.
Photo credit: © Photographer: Heino Lepp. From the Australian National Botanic Gardens website.
Polyporus mylittae Cooke & Massee
Polyporus mylittae Sacc.
Polyporus minormylittae
Mylitta australis (anamorph)
Notihydnum australe (anamorph)
Native bread (Australian aboriginal)
Blackfellows' Bread
Lei Wan (Chinese)
Laccocephalum mylittae is used in traditional Chinese medicine as an antihelminthic (Wang and Zhu, 1989). The sclerotium were eaten by aboriginals in Australia as a food source, hence the common name Native bread.
Anti-inflammatory activity
Chinese researchers isolated a polysaccharide they named S-4001, shown to be a (1→3)-β-D- glucan with some (1→6) linkages. Administration of S-4001 significantly increased anti-inflammatory activity in a variety of animal models. Reported experimental effects of S-4001 (all from Wang and Zhu, 1989):
- inhibitory action on leukocyte migration induced by intraperitoneal injection of carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) in rats
- significant increase of corticosterone in plasma, but with no increase in ascorbic acid content in the adrenals of rats
- increase in clearance of Congo red from mice blood
- potentiation of the immunohemolysis reaction in 615 mice (a mouse leukemia model)
Blackfellow's Bread (by Valda Dedman)
Melbourne Royal Botanic Gardens Fungus of the Month, April 2004
Naturebase - (Western Australian) Fungus of the Month, December 2007
Museum Victoria, Underground fungus
References
Macfarlane TD, Kuo J, Hilton RN.
Structure of the giant sclerotium of Polyporus mylittae.
Trans Brit Myco Soc. 1978 71:359-65.
Orchard AE, May TW, Young T. 2003.
Fungi of Australia 2B.
CSIRO Publishing, Australian Biological Resources Study.
Google Books excerpt
Wang SF.
[Cultural comparison of 4 strains of Polyporus mylittae]
Zhong Yao Tong Bao. 1985 10(1):7-9. Chinese.
Wang WJ, Zhu XY.
[The antiinflammatory and immunostimulating activities of S-4001--a polysaccharide isolated from Lei Wan (Polyporus mylitiae)]
Yao Xue Xue Bao. 1989 24(2):151-4. Chinese.
Last modified: 01-Aug-2008
