Review on an ethnomedicinal practices of wild mushrooms by the local tribes of India

INTRODUCTION

Mushrooms have been well known to us as an ingredient of gourmet cuisine; chiefly, for their particular flavor as well as various traditional practices and have been valued by humankind as a culinary wonder. Regarding the diversity of fungi, Hawksworth (2001) estimated the occurrence of approximately 1.5 million species worldwide. Ethnomycology is the study of wild macrofungi in folklore and rituals, from prehistoric times to that time (Charaya and Mehrotra, 1999) with their morphometric identification by the tribe along with documentation of nutritional properties and indigenous knowledge regarding their uses as food, medicine and in some other cultural traditional uses also. Edible and medicinal practices of mushrooms in India is quite common, some of which dates back to 1700–1100 BC (Wasson, 1971). India is a diverse country which belongs to different types of tribal people or ethnic groups and each group has own management practices of natural resources for their daily uses. The eastern countries of Asia documented the traditional information on the utilization of cooked and therapeutic mushrooms had been accepted on generation to generation but it was not so much in India (Panda and Tayung, 2015). Traditional knowledge of wild edible and medicinal mushrooms might have lost all over the world due to lack of documentation. Traditional information of Indian tribal communities has demonstrated to be broad and profound, consuming nearly 283 species of wild macrofungi out of 2,000 species documented world over (Purkayastha and Chandra, 1985). Indigenous communities have been utilizing non-timber forest products by using their ethnomycological knowledge of wild mushrooms collection, preparations with food items and consuming since time immemorial for their different daily uses, i.e., edible, medicinal and have been considered as the secondary food resources (Boa, 2004). Ethnomycological studies revealed that wild edible mushrooms have been reported from Odisha, West Bengal, Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh of India (Baruah et al., 1971; Sarma et al., 2010; Sing and Sing, 1993; Sing et al., 2002; Tanti et al., 2011). The North Eastern Himalayan Region of India is a biodiversity hotspot which covers eight states, viz., Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram, Tripura and Sikkim (Myers, 2003) but very lees amount of research have been carried out from different parts of the Northeastern states of India. The negative site of various traditional knowledge is proper identification, addressing poisoning, various utilization process, spreading of traditional knowledge and market value for selling wild mushrooms due to which many people died in various part of the world (Agrahar-Murugkar and Subbulakshmi, 2005; Basumatary and Gogoi, 2016; Khaund and Joshi, 2014; Sarma et al., 2010; Singh and Chhetry, 2010; Paul et al., 2015). In ancient time, the alertness of wild edible macrofungi and their significance to people of the developing countries have often been ignored but it is only in recent years that initiatives on non-wood forest products have begun to clarify their action use and functions in livelihoods (Devi, 2017; Kumar et al., 2014). Systematics of wild macrofungi has accepted more awareness than other endangered aspects like conservation (Kumar et al., 2014).

Mushrooms have been used as an important food items, and it also contain different medicine properties in all over the world because they contains different active constituents, such as polysaccharides, dietary fibers, selenium oligosaccharides, triterpenoids, peptides, proteins, alcohol, phenols, amino acids and mineral elements (Chang and Buswell, 1996; Chang and Miles, 2002; Lakhanpal et al., 2010; Wani et al., 2010; Wasser, 2010). The World Health Organization (WHO) released a report on ethnomedicine, which has maintained its attractiveness all over the world, and its diverse uses, such as traditional therapies and therapeutic techniques, with Chinese, Ayurveda, Arabic, Unani and native medicine which are speedily growing in the industrialized countries (WHO, 2002–2005). Therapeutic applications of macrofungi have been documented in China, Japan, and Korea for centuries, where fungi have been used by tradition for their medicinal properties. Medicinal application of wild mushrooms to maintain human health was recorded as early as 100 AD in China. The ecological data available on some of the taxa are still not enough and they need to be explored from all over the world. The specific goals of this review work are to document the ethnomedicinal wild mushrooms of India, which were used by the local people of India along with their vernacular names, uses and methods of preparation.

RECORDS OF ETHNOMEDICINAL USES OF MUSHROOMS

The present review work established that people of the various parts of the world collect the mushrooms from the wild condition and consume various types of edible mushrooms as food or prepare with other food items and also use them for treatment of various human diseases. These wild medicinal mushrooms are edible, medicinal, poisonous, edible with medicinal properties and poisonous with medicinal activity and these mushrooms play a considerable role in sustaining the livelihood of the rural people. Chauhan et al., (2014) recorded twelve wild edible macrofungi, viz., Agaricus campestris, Helvella compressa, Morchella conica, Morchella esculenta, Morchella deliciosa, Ramaria botrytis, Lactarius deliciosus, Rhizopogon vulgaris, Sparassis crispa, Gyromitra sp. Hygrophorus sp. and Lycoperdon sp. which were used by the local tribes of Kinnaur district, Himachal Pradesh, India as food by various modes of preparation. Dutta and Acharya, (2014) found 34 macrofungal species from West Bengal, India which were eat up or used by the locals and tribals peoples among which 31 macrofungi species were found to be edible and 5 were used as traditional medicine, while some of them were used for both the purposes. Srivastava et al. (2011) conducted an ethnobotanical survey for use of Termitomyces species in Gorakhpur forest division of Uttar Pradesh, India and they found that tribal people and forest dwellers use Termitomyces species as food as well as medicinal purposes but other uses were not clearly known. Earlier findings revealed that macrofungi were used as food supplements and also important due to their healing capacities used by the traditional people (Valverde et al., 2015). Hernández-Santiago et al., (2016) documented a sum of 106 macrofungal species which were growing in oak and pine forest, grassland, deciduous tropical forest, among the identified macrofungi 26 species consumed, 18 recorded as toxic, 6 having ludic application, left over 56 species not individually used but 56 species used as food and 28 species as medicine from Southeastern Mexico. Adhikari et al. (2005) also worked on ethnomedicinal knowledge of wild mushrooms from the vicinities of Lumle and Kathmandu valley of Nepal. They found a total of 24 species of which 18 macrofungi were used as culinary, 8 for various medicinal uses and 3 for their other reasons.

Okigbo and Nwatu, (2015) reported six different species of macrofungi which were used by the people of Anambra State, Nigeria for various purposes, such as Daldinia concentrica in cure of stomach upset, Auricularia auricular-judae and Lentinus squarrosulus in medication of infertility and anaemia, Trichobatrachus robustus in remedies of Anaemia and high blood pressure, Termitomyces sp. for curing Anaemia, weakness, and high blood pressure and V. volvacea only used for the cure of Anaemia. Ethnomycological study of the use of mushrooms in North central Nigeria reveals that the majority of citizens consume macrofungi mainly due to their nutritional, palatability and medicinal characteristics (Ayodele et al., 2009). Kimn and Song (2014) reported 38 species of wild mushrooms belonging 33 genera, 22 families by the traditional knowledge recorded from the tribal communities and 158 types of practices were classified and ideal families were Tricholomataceae, Pleurotaceae, Polyporaceae and Hymenochaetaceae. This result revealed 24 methods of preparation for the cooked mushrooms, such as soups, teas, simmered and roasted along with different medicinal uses. Each tribe of India use their own methods for preparation of traditional medicine, such as some fungus or fungal spores used directly, some of them are used in powdered form, mixed with water, milk, tea, sugar, butter, chili, egg and oil, mixed with other plant parts and vegetables for various remedies (Table 1).

The various vernacular names, uses and techniques of preparation of wild mushrooms by the various tribes of India as well as other parts of the world were also recorded. They used a vernacular name for each fungus and these names varied among the different tribes. Present data revealed that wild mushroom species from different parts of India are used as food and traditional medicine by the tribal community and this wide diversity of mushroom species may be due to the existence of diverse vegetations and climatic conditions of India. In this review work, we have found that there are almost 18 reports about the traditional use of wild mushrooms as medicine from review work, we have found that there are almost 18 reports about the traditional use of wild mushrooms as medicine from 14 states, namely, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Nagaland, Sikkim, Jammu, Kashmir, Odisha, Tamilnadu, West Bengal, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand of India. This documentation suggested that, at present, there are 100 species of macrofungi belonged to 56 genera are used by the diverse tribes or people from various parts of India for the cure of various diseases (Table 1). Some of them are Pleurotus, Astraeus, Agaricus, Bovista, Coprinus, Pisolithus, Ganoderma, Lycoperdon, Trametes, Termitomyces, Phallus, Morchella, Lentinus, Lactarius, Hericium, Fomes, Flammulina and Auricularia which were highly used as a local medicine by the various tribes of India.

Table 1. Ethnomedicinally used wild mushrooms collected by different tribe or local people of India along with their vernacular name, used for, methods of preparation for use, name of the states of India from where it was collected and references. [Click here to view]

TRADITIONAL USES OF WILD MUSHROOMS AS MEDICINE IN INDIA

Wild mushrooms are used as herbal medicine, namely, wound healing, burning, itching, staunch bleeding eye disorders (pain, redness, conjunctivitis), fever and vomiting, typhoid, frost bites, ear puss, skin infections, curing stomach upset, brain tonic, against anger, constipation, weakness, eczema and mouth freshener (Devi, 2017; Dutta and Achariya, 2014; Kumar et al., 2014; 2017; Lahiri et al., 2010; Malik et al., 2017; Manna et al., 2014; Panda and Tayung, 2015; Rai et al., 1993; Thangaraj et al., 2017). Some mushrooms are used for a common illness, such as an antidepressant, treating lumbago, leg pains, numbness in limbs and tendon discomfort, nervous system colds, sore throats, sore eyes and stop bleeding (Malik et al., 2017; Pala et al., 2013; Panda and Tayung, 2015). Some major traditional uses of mushrooms against various scared diseases, viz, pneumonia, respiratory problems, asthma, jaundice, pox, goiters, diabetes, cancer, aphrodisiac, invigorative, revitaliser, anti-aging, kidney stones and partial paralysis (Kumar et al., 2014; 2017; Manna et al., 2014; Pala et al., 2013; Panda and Swain, 2011; Panda and Tayung, 2015; Rai et al., 1993). Wild mushrooms are also used by the tribal people for private diseases, such as aphrodisiac, menstrual cramps, to enhancing the lactation and prescribed to women after deliveries, treat male infertility and male visceral organ infections (Kumar et al., 2017; Thangaraj et al., 2017). Different ethnomedicinally important mushrooms with their traditional names of macrofungi, names of the tribes with their locality, purposes of use, various preparation techniques along with their references of publication are mentioned in Table 1.

CONCLUSION

Present finding concluded that wild mushrooms may contain various active compounds due to which they showed different medicinal behavior and used by the tribal peoples of the world. The traditional drug preparation knowledge of mushrooms could preferably attract scientist which will corporate to indulge their interest for the exploration of underlying scientific, economic and biological prospects. Accurate identification is also necessary because without any proper identification, we cannot explore traditional knowledge of wild mushrooms. Therefore, there is an urgent need to document indigenous knowledge about wild medicinal mushrooms which were used by the tribal peoples belonging to all the states of India as well as all over the world. This study will also be helpful for future researchers to identify the active compound of traditionally used wild macrofungi which were responsible for different medicinal activities. It is also needed to develop species specific cultivation of traditionally used mushrooms for commercialization and also for conservation. Many mushrooms species still remain unexplored and their medicinal, nutritional properties, as well as health benefits are unknown to us.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The first author is thankful to the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India, for the financial assistance received through project (Sanctioned Order no. BT/463/NE/TBP/2013).

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors have declared that they have no conflict of interest.

FUNDING

Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India (Sanctioned Order no. BT/463/NE/TBP/2013).

ETHICS APPROVAL

Not applicable.

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