Each year, about 80% of the country's annual production of cordyceps from the Tibetan Plateau, and Qinghai accounted for about 60%. In Yushu, there is this saying: "National Cordyceps look at Qinghai, Qinghai Cordyceps look at Yushu." At an altitude of 4,700 meters, we work with the Tibetans to find the Cordyceps, which is more expensive than gold.

The Tibetan girl, Angwen, follows adults up the mountain to dig for cordyceps in May and June every year. Cordyceps can only grow in the shade of the high mountains, and the locals need to bend down, or kneel down, with their faces on the ground, and carpet search before they can find anything.

Cordyceps, which is more valuable than gold

Cordyceps, also known as Cordyceps. Bat moth larvae infected by Cordyceps sinensis, dead bodies, tissues and mycelium into a hard pseudo-mycelium nucleus, in the winter low-temperature dry soil to keep the worm shape unchanged for several months, the formation of the "winter worm", to be suitable for summer temperature and humidity from the nucleus of the bacteria

grow out of the rod-shaped entities (cysts) and exposed to the ground, to become the "summer grass". "Summer grass", is a traditional precious Chinese herbal medicine.

Cordyceps grows in the alpine meadow belt at an altitude of 3800~5000 meters. From May to late June every year, after the snow has just melted, it is the best season to harvest Cordyceps. Currently, Yushu in Qinghai and Nagchu in Tibet are the two major production areas of Cordyceps. If it were not for the spores of a fungus called Cordyceps sinensis, the larvae of the bat moths, which are hidden deep below the surface, would have become moths, sprouted wings of various colors, and flown across the Tibetan Plateau by now. But in the previous winter, the larvae in the soil and fungal spores meet, life trajectory has changed. Robe into the body of the worm, the formation of fungal mycelium, absorbing the worm's nutrients, the worm's life is exhausted, leaving only the shell of the worm, the next year the warm season, the mycelium will break out of the ground, and grow this like a worm is not a worm, like a grass is not a grass thing.

The encounter in the soil changed the fate of the Tibetan people on the Tibetan plateau. People dig it out of the soil, wipe off the soil of its insect body, dry, resale, hand over hand, after a few bumps, from the countryside, small towns to the city, this small wormwood will not lose to the price of gold

on the counter of the traditional Chinese medicine line, become a highly respected tonic, medicine.

And here, one of the most lucrative incomes of the year for the whole family often comes from the cordyceps.

It is said that about 80% of the annual production of cordyceps comes from the Tibetan Plateau, and Qinghai accounts for about 60%. In Yushu, there is this saying: "National Cordyceps look at Qinghai, Qinghai Cordyceps look at Yushu."