Health Canada recognizes 14 types of medicinal mushrooms well studied and proven to deliver beneficial effects. Here are the 6 most popular and commonly used functional mushrooms available today:

• Lion's Mane mushrooms (Hericium Erinaceus) have a white color and globe shape with long hairs, spines or teeth. They've been used in Chinese medicine for centuries and are also considered a choice edible.
• Cordyceps mushrooms (Cordyceps Militaris) are parasitic fungi that traditionally grow on host larvae high in the Tibetan plateaus. Today they are cultivated on rice and soybeans.
• Reishi mushrooms (Ganoderma Lucidum) have been extremely popular in Eastern medicine for thousands of years. Farmers began cultivating them in the 1970s. They naturally grow in hot and humid places across Asia.
• Turkey Tail mushrooms (Trametes Versicolor) are a multicolored type of mushroom with a disc-like shape. They are plentiful in many areas around the world and grow on tree trunks or decaying logs.
• Tremella mushrooms (Tremella Fuciformis) are also called white fungi. They are edible and grow in tree branches or barks. They have a jelly like appearance and can hold up to 100 times their weight in water.
• Chaga mushrooms (Inonotus Obliquus) grow on birch trees in the cold climates of the northern hemisphere and are known as the King of Mushrooms. The part of the chaga mushroom that we consume as medicine is called the sclerotium.