Cordyceps sinensis in China is mainly produced in the five provinces of Qinghai, Tibet, Sichuan, Yunnan and Gansu in mainland China in the alpine zone and snowy mountain grasslands.

By the body of the worm and the fungus from the head of the worm to grow out of the cotyledons connected to become. The body of the insect is shaped like a silkworm, 3-5 cm long, 0.3-0.8 cm in diameter; the surface is dark yellow to yellowish brown with 20-30 rings, and the rings near the head are finer; the head is reddish brown; there are 8 pairs of feet, and 4 pairs in the middle of the body are more obvious; the texture is brittle and easy to be broken, and the cross-section is slightly flat and yellowish-white.

The cotyledons are elongated cylindrical, 4~7 cm long, about 0.3 cm in diameter; the surface is dark brown to brownish brown, with fine longitudinal wrinkles, the upper part is slightly enlarged; the texture is pliable, and the section is white. Gas slightly fishy, taste slightly bitter. The one with complete, fat body, bright yellow color, yellow-white inner color and short ascospores is better.

Expanded Information

After receiving the total goods from the origin, some buyers will categorize the wormwood according to the size, and the broken deflated dead grass is too much will be picked out of a portion of it and then sold to the first-class wholesalers. The general wear strip broken grass in 5% or so of the selection is the standard of origin selection, Xining and Lhasa wholesale market this origin selection more, but the origin selection can not quantify the standard, some 20% of the wear strip in the wholesalers also called selection, is the wholesale market in order to cater to the product of the strategy of the competition of the low price.

Because of the lack of quantification of the origin selection standard, on the basis of which Cordyceps experts introduced a higher quantitative standard, namely: no wear stripes, no broken grass, no deflated grass, no dead grass, no mixing of grass, dryness is maintained at more than 95%, and at the same time will be poorer fullness of Cordyceps pick out the formation of high-quality selected Cordyceps that is the origin of the 5A selection.

Cordyceps is wild, the local Tibetans in the season to dig Cordyceps on the mountain digging, digging to the Cordyceps have big and small, there are full, there is not full, there are digging broken, there are deflated grass and dead grass, will be dug up all the Cordyceps together to sell to Cordyceps buyers, because of the unevenness of goods, known as the total goods.

Because of the late digging time, the insect body nutrients are absorbed by the head of the grass too much, which leads to the body of the insect become deflated, or even empty, in general, deflated grass accompanied by the phenomenon of the head of the grass is too long. There are also late improper storage, resulting in moisture seedling caused by deflated.