Yartsa Gunbu - Cordyceps sinensis. Economy - Home

INTRODUCTION
The importance of Cordyceps sinensis for rural populations, especially nomads in the Tibetan
areas, cannot be overstated. In past centuries it was an important bartering good to obtain tea
from China, a mainstay in the Tibetan diet. Nowadays, it provides a cash income to households,
which are still carrying out most of their pastoral and, where possible, agricultural activities on a
traditional subsistence basis. It enables otherwise impoverished households to purchase goods,
and to pay school fees, hospital bills or taxes. Collection of medicinal plants has a long-standing
history in Tibetan culture, be it for personal use or for trade. With the continuous advance of a
cash economy onto the Tibetan Plateau, collection of tradable plants and fungi, as medicine, as
food or aroma source, has gained increasing importance, especially for rural populations who are
otherwise participating only marginally in the new cash economy.
ETHNO-MYCOLOGICAL SUMMARY
The Tibetan name yartsa gunbu (dbyar rtswa dgun 'bu) means “summer grass-winter worm”.
“Grass” (rtswa) is also used to denote other mushrooms such as Ganoderma lutescens, which is
also collected as a medicinal mushroom for the Chinese market in some Tibetan areas. Boesi
(2003) notes that this term describes the life stages of Cordyceps; Tibetans “believe that during
winter the yartsa gunbu lives as a worm and that, after a metamorphosis occurring at the
beginning of spring, it transforms into a kind of grass. Tibetans recognise two distinct phases in
the transformation process. At first, from the head of the larvae the “grass” starts growing. At this
stage the worm, whitish in colour, is still alive and it is possible to see it moving over the ground
with a short horn protruding from its head. Subsequently, as the season progresses, the horn
continues to grow until the worm dies. When the metamorphosis is completed, the worm, [now]
brownish-yellow in colour, is transformed into the root of a kind of grass”.
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