Caterpillar Fungus
''Ophiocordyceps sinensis'' (formerly known as ''Cordyceps sinensis''), known colloquially as caterpillar fungus, is an entomopathogenic fungus (a fungus that grows on insects) in the family Ophiocordycipitaceae. It is mainly found in the meadows above on the Tibetan Plateau in Southwest China and the Himalayan regions of Bhutan and Nepal. It parasite, parasitizes larvae of Hepialidae, ghost moths and produces a sporocarp (fungi), fruiting body which used to be valued as a herbal remedy and in traditional Chinese medicine. Caterpillar fungus contains the compound cordycepin, an adenosine derivative. However, the fruiting bodies harvested in nature usually contain high amounts of arsenic and other heavy metals so they are potentially toxic and sales have been strictly regulated by the CFDA (China Food and Drug Administration) since 2016. ''O. sinensis'' parasitizes the larvae of moths within the family Hepialidae, specifically genera found on the Tibetan Plateau and in the Hima ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Berk
Berk may refer to: * Berk (name), a surname, given name, or any of several people with that name * Berk, Bolu, Turkey, a village * Berk Trade and Business School, New York City * Berk, a fictional island in the ''How to Train Your Dragon'' series of books and films * , a torpedo cruiser of the Ottoman Navy later renamed ''Berk'' * Berk, rhyming slang#Taboo terms, rhyming slang often used to mean "foolish person" * ''Berk.'', taxonomic author abbreviation of Miles Joseph Berkeley (1803–1889), English cryptogamist and founder of the science of plant pathology See also * Berk–Tabatznik syndrome, a medical condition * De Berk (other) * Berks (other) * Birk (other) {{disambiguation ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Traditional Chinese Medicine
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. It has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience", with the majority of its treatments having no logical mechanism of action. Medicine in traditional China encompassed a range of sometimes competing health and healing practices, folk beliefs, literati theory and Confucian philosophy, herbal remedies, food, diet, exercise, medical specializations, and schools of thought. In the early twentieth century, Chinese cultural and political modernizers worked to eliminate traditional practices as backward and unscientific. Traditional practitioners then selected elements of philosophy and practice and organized them into what they called "Chinese medicine" (''Zhongyi''). In the 1950s, the Chinese government sponsored the integration of Chinese and Western medicine, and in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, promoted Chinese medicine as inexpensive a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Molecular Phylogenetics
Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to determine the processes by which diversity among species has been achieved. The result of a molecular phylogenetic analysis is expressed in a phylogenetic tree. Molecular phylogenetics is one aspect of molecular systematics, a broader term that also includes the use of molecular data in taxonomy and biogeography. Molecular phylogenetics and molecular evolution correlate. Molecular evolution is the process of selective changes (mutations) at a molecular level (genes, proteins, etc.) throughout various branches in the tree of life (evolution). Molecular phylogenetics makes inferences of the evolutionary relationships that arise due to molecular evolution and results in the construction of a phylogenetic tree. History The theoretical frame ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cordyceps
''Cordyceps'' is a genus of ascomycete fungi (sac fungi) that includes about 600 species. Most ''Cordyceps'' species are endoparasitoids, parasitic mainly on insects and other arthropods (they are thus entomopathogenic fungi); a few are parasitic on other fungi. The generic name ''Cordyceps'' is derived from the Greek word κορδύλη ''kordýlē'', meaning "club", and the Greek word κεφαλή ''cephali'', meaning "head". The genus has a worldwide distribution and most of the approximately 600 species that have been described are from Asia (notably Nepal, China, Japan, Bhutan, Korea, Vietnam, and Thailand). ''Cordyceps'' species are particularly abundant and diverse in humid temperate and tropical jungles. Subtaxa There are two recognized subgenera: *''Cordyceps'' subgen. ''Cordyceps'' Fr. 1818 *''Cordyceps'' subgen. ''Cordylia'' Tul. & C. Tul. 1865 ''Cordyceps'' subgen. ''Epichloe'' was at one time a subgenus, but is now regarded as a separate genus, ''Epichloë''. ' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pier Andrea Saccardo
Pier Andrea Saccardo (23 April 1845 in Treviso, Treviso – 12 February 1920 in Padua) was an Italian botanist and mycologist. Life Saccardo studied at the Lyceum in Venice, and then at the Technical Institute of the University of Padua where, in 1867 he received his doctorate. He was an Assistant to Roberto de Visiani (1800-1878) an Italian botanist, naturalist and scholar. Then in 1869, he became a professor of Natural History in Padua. In 1876 he established the mycological journal ''Michelia'' which published many of his early mycological papers. In 1879 he became a professor of Botany and director of the botanical gardens of the university until 1915. He accumulated around 70,000 fungal specimens encompassing over 18,500 different species for his herbarium. Which is still stored at the university. Saccardo's scientific activity focused almost entirely on mycology. He wrote his first book in 1864 (when he was 19 years old), ''Flora Montellica: an introduction to the flo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Miles Berkeley
Miles Joseph Berkeley (1 April 1803 – 30 July 1889) was an English cryptogamist and clergyman, and one of the founders of the science of plant pathology. Life Berkeley was born at Biggin Hall, Benefield, Northamptonshire, and educated at Rugby School and Christ's College, Cambridge. Taking holy orders, he became incumbent of Apethorpe in 1837, and vicar of Sibbertoft, near Market Harborough, in 1868. He acquired an enthusiastic love of cryptogamic botany ( lichens) in his early years, and soon was recognized as the leading British authority on fungi and plant pathology. Christ's College made him an honorary fellow in 1883. He was well known as a systematist in mycology with some 6000 species of fungi being credited to him, but his ''Introduction to Cryptogamic Botany'', published in 1857, and his papers on Vegetable Pathology in the ''Gardener's Chronicle'' in 1854 and onwards, show that he had a broad grasp of the whole domain of physiology and morphology as understood i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tom Petch
Thomas Petch (born Hornsea, Yorkshire, 11 March 1870; died King's Lynn, Norfolk, 24 December 1948) was a prolific English mycologist and plant pathologist best remembered for his work on the interaction between fungi and insects. Biography Petch was educated at the choir school of Holy Trinity at Hull, and taught at the King's Lynn Grammar School and Leyton Technical Institute while preparing for external degrees at the University of London. Petch had an early interest in natural history, but Charles Plowright, a doctor and mycologist in King's Lynn, encouraged him to study fungi. Through a friendship with George Massee of the Royal Botanical Gardens Petch was appointed Mycologist to the Government of Ceylon in 1905. He returned to England briefly to marry Edith Mary Plowright (b. 1875), Charles' daughter, in 1908. Petch held this position until 1924. After a leave to visit England, he returned to Ceylon as the founding director of the Tea Research Institute. In 1928 he re ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Perithecia
An ascocarp, or ascoma (), is the fruiting body ( sporocarp) of an ascomycete phylum fungus. It consists of very tightly interwoven hyphae and millions of embedded asci, each of which typically contains four to eight ascospores. Ascocarps are most commonly bowl-shaped (apothecia) but may take on a spherical or flask-like form that has a pore opening to release spores (perithecia) or no opening (cleistothecia). Classification The ascocarp is classified according to its placement (in ways not fundamental to the basic taxonomy). It is called ''epigeous'' if it grows above ground, as with the morels, while underground ascocarps, such as truffles, are termed ''hypogeous''. The structure enclosing the hymenium is divided into the types described below (apothecium, cleistothecium, etc.) and this character ''is'' important for the taxonomic classification of the fungus. Apothecia can be relatively large and fleshy, whereas the others are microscopic—about the size of flecks of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ostiole
An ''ostiole'' is a small hole or opening through which algae or fungi release their mature spores. The word is a diminutive of "ostium", "opening". The term is also used in higher plants, for example to denote the opening of the involuted syconium (fig inflorescence) through which fig wasps enter to pollinate and breed. Sometimes a stoma In botany, a stoma (from Greek ''στόμα'', "mouth", plural "stomata"), also called a stomate (plural "stomates"), is a pore found in the epidermis of leaves, stems, and other organs, that controls the rate of gas exchange. The pore is bor ...tal aperture is called an "ostiole"."Synergistic Pectin Degradation and Guard Cell Pressurization Underlie Stomatal Pore Formation", See also * Ostium (other) References Fungal morphology and anatomy Plant anatomy {{botany-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stipe (mycology)
In mycology, a stipe () is the stem or stalk-like feature supporting the cap of a mushroom. Like all tissues of the mushroom other than the hymenium, the stipe is composed of sterile hyphal tissue. In many instances, however, the fertile hymenium extends down the stipe some distance. Fungi that have stipes are said to be stipitate. The evolutionary benefit of a stipe is generally considered to be in mediating spore dispersal. An elevated mushroom will more easily release its spores into wind currents or onto passing animals. Nevertheless, many mushrooms do not have stipes, including cup fungi, puffballs, earthstars, some polypores, jelly fungi, ergots, and smuts. It is often the case that features of the stipe are required to make a positive identification of a mushroom. Such distinguishing characters include: # the texture of the stipe (fibrous, brittle, chalky, leathery, firm, etc.) # whether it has remains of a partial veil (such as an annulus or cortina) or universal ve ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stroma (animal Tissue)
Stroma () is the part of a tissue or organ with a structural or connective role. It is made up of all the parts without specific functions of the organ - for example, connective tissue, blood vessels, ducts, etc. The other part, the parenchyma, consists of the cells that perform the function of the tissue or organ. There are multiple ways of classifying tissues: one classification scheme is based on tissue functions and another analyzes their cellular components. Stromal tissue falls into the "functional" class that contributes to the body's support and movement. The cells which make up stroma tissues serve as a matrix in which the other cells are embedded. Stroma is made of various types of stromal cells. Examples of stroma include: * stroma of iris * stroma of cornea * stroma of ovary * stroma of thyroid gland * stroma of thymus * stroma of bone marrow * lymph node stromal cell * multipotent stromal cell (mesenchymal stem cell) Structure Stromal connective tissues are foun ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sclerotium
A sclerotium (; (), is a compact mass of hardened fungal mycelium containing food reserves. One role of sclerotia is to survive environmental extremes. In some higher fungi such as ergot, sclerotia become detached and remain dormant until favorable growth conditions return. Sclerotia initially were mistaken for individual organisms and described as separate species until Louis René Tulasne proved in 1853 that sclerotia are only a stage in the life cycle of some fungi. Further investigation showed that this stage appears in many fungi belonging to many diverse groups. Sclerotia are important in the understanding of the life cycle and reproduction of fungi, as a food source, as medicine (for example, ergotamine), and in agricultural blight management. Examples of fungi that form sclerotia are ergot (''Claviceps purpurea''), ''Polyporus tuberaster'', ''Psilocybe mexicana'', ''Sclerotium delphinii'' and many species in Sclerotiniaceae. Although not fungal, the plasmodium of slime ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |