Kew Scientists Unmask False Lingzhi to End a 245-Year Mushroom Mystery
Genomic analysis reveals that European Ganoderma lucidum diverged from medicinal East Asian lingzhi 16 million years ago, resolving critical quality control risks
By Letizia Giugliano
2 min readHuman-Edited, AI-Assisted
Researchers from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and international partners have resolved a 245-year-old taxonomic mix-up by distinguishing European bracket fungus Ganoderma lucidum from the East Asian medicinal species Ganoderma lingzhi. The scientific innovation, published in Plants, People, Planet in October 2026, relies on genomic evidence from a rediscovered London specimen to establish species boundaries. Clarifying this identity provides an evidence-based foundation to verify pharmaceutical quality and protect intellectual property across a £200 billion global market for medicinal fungi.
A 240-Year-Old Fungal Identity Crisis
For more than 240 years, the European bracket fungus Ganoderma lucidum and the East Asian medicinal species Ganoderma lingzhi have been treated as the same organism due to their similar physical appearance, as reported by Phys.org. The roots of the error date back to 1781, when English botanist and entomologist William Curtis first described the European fungus under an earlier name. Because only an illustration of the original type specimen survived without physical biological material, researchers had no direct reference tissue to examine for centuries, slowing taxonomic innovation.
“Treating these two distantly related fungi as the same species is comparable to treating humans and orangutans as a single species.”
— Dr. Torda Varga, Research Fellow at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
The April 2025 Fungarium Discovery
A critical breakthrough occurred in April 2025 when mycologist Dr. Viktor Papp from the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences visited the historic collections at Kew's Fungarium, according to Phys.org. Papp identified a mislabelled historical specimen collected from a hazel tree near London that matched Curtis' 1781 botanical illustration. This physical tissue gave researchers the genetic material needed to generate a baseline reference profile for G. lucidum and compare it against global genomic databases.
Genetic Limits and Divergence
Analysing the reference genome showed that standard DNA barcoding, which relies on a single short genomic sequence, fails to differentiate these fungi accurately, according to Phys.org. Out of 1,130 public sequences assigned to G. lucidum, only 149 actually belonged to the species. Evolutionary modelling confirmed that the European fungus and East Asian lingzhi diverged at least 16 million years ago, prompting the research team to propose the formal common name false lingzhi for G. lucidum to prevent further commercial and scientific errors.
Safeguarding Natural Medicine and Research
The confusion directly affects the £200 billion ($271.14 billion) traditional Chinese medicine market, where G. lingzhi is widely commercialised for anti-inflammatory properties, while G. lucidum has unproven therapeutic value, reports Phys.org. Species verification is essential for verifying bioactive compounds such as beta-glucans and triterpenoids, which have shown promising activity against brain tumor cells in mice. Standardised multi-fragment sequencing will allow laboratories to protect product authenticity, secure intellectual property, and support future patent filings and natural pharmaceutical formulations based on verified fungal genetics.
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