Where can I find golden cicada flowers?

If we live in a place with mountains, we can use our leisure time to collect some herbs, and then come back to make our own Chinese herbal medicine to help regulate our bodies. Nowadays, the efficacy of golden cicada flowers in making wine has become well known, so it is quite a good idea to collect some golden cicada flowers. So, if you want to collect the herb Golden Cicada Flower, where can you find it? Let's take a look at the main production areas of Golden Cicada Flower.

Cicada fungus mainly appears in Sichuan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian in China, but is also distributed in Anhui and eastern Yunnan provinces. In Zhejiang, the hilly areas where bamboo forests grow are 80-500m above sea level, with a flat terrain, high density, loose soil, high humidity, and a layer of dead branches and fallen leaves covering the ground. In some woodlands where bamboo cicadas often move around, cicada flowers can generally be collected. On the contrary, if the slope is steeper, with dense ferns and thatch grasses and the soil compacted, cicada fungi rarely occur. An investigation into the source of three rivers in Yunnan Province found that cicada fungi were extinct at altitudes above 2,500m. Cicada fungus specimens can be collected in broad-leaved forests below 2500m above sea level, or in mixed forests of coniferous and broad-leaved trees such as Quercus glauca and Castanea henryi, and such trees as Pinus yunnanensis and Abies yunnanensis, where the forest has a high density, loose soil, and a thick layer of dead branches and fallen leaves. The hosts are mostly small cicadas and cicadas. No cicada fungus was found in pure coniferous forests.

Growth habit

There are seven host species of P. cicadae, namely, bamboo cicada (Platylomia pieli), mountain cicada (Cicada flammata), cicada (Platyleurakaempferi), Yunnan black cicada (Cicadatra shaluensis), grass cicada (Mogannia conica), small cicada (Oncotympanaella) and transparent wing cicada (Hyalessaronsnana), most of which are distributed in southern provinces of China. Bamboo cicada is commonly found in bamboo producing areas and is an important host of Paecilomyces cicadae. This insect has one generation every 6 years, with 5 instars in each generation. It lives in the soil all year round, and the older nymphs are most susceptible to disease. In the warm and humid season with a temperature of 18-24℃ and a relative humidity of >80%, old nymphs active in the shallow soil layer become infected when they come into contact with contaminated soil. In June and July of the following year, when the temperature and humidity are suitable, light yellow or egg yolk spore stalks will grow on the front end of the diseased and dead insects, breaking through the topsoil and extending to the ground, forming the cicada fungus we commonly see.

Some Cordyceps that are easily confused with commercial cicada fungus

Because cicadas have a long life history and are often infected by a variety of entomogenic fungi, there are more than ten species recorded in my country that are easily confused with cicada fungi. Therefore, those collected in the wild cannot be eaten casually.