Himalayan Lion's Mane (Hericium erinaceus), forest-foraged
A cascading white tooth-fungus foraged from wounded oak trunks in Kumaon and Garhwal's temperate forest belt.
| Origin | Uttarakhand, India |
| Indian subcontinent | Yes |
| Category | Fungi & Functional Mycology |
| Retail price band | Retail (fresh/whole dried): approx. INR 8,500/kg |
| Bulk / trade price band | Trade/bulk (extract powder): INR 1,200–3,200/kg depending on standardisation and volume |
| Sourcing status | Dossier researched from public sources — producer contact not yet established |
| Compliance status | Preliminary review complete (see below) — not yet legally verified |
Detailed study
Hericium erinaceus — lion's mane, or hedgehog mushroom — is a white, cascading tooth-fungus that fruits from wounds on living or recently dead broadleaf trees. In the Indian Himalaya it grows in temperate oak forest between roughly 1,500 and 2,500 metres, within the Banj oak (Quercus leucotrichophora) belt characteristic of the Kumaon and Garhwal regions of Uttarakhand.
Provenance & producer
Wild material is foraged by hill-community collectors during the monsoon-to-autumn fruiting window. A parallel, increasingly important supply route is log- or bag-cultivation by hill-station mushroom units (mirroring the Cordyceps militaris pattern above) — worth tracking separately, since wild supply is seasonal and inherently limited while cultivated supply can scale.
Market & pricing
Indian B2B listings show a wide spread: fresh or whole dried lion's mane lists around INR 8,500/kg from a New Delhi supplier, while extract powder — a more processed, lower-potency-per-gram product — trades much lower, at INR 1,200–3,200/kg depending on standardisation and order volume. This fruiting-body-versus-extract price split mirrors the pattern seen across the whole fungi category.
Compliance & export
Wild collection falls under the same Forest Rights Act / minor forest produce framework as wild Reishi, plus Biological Diversity Act clearance for export. Regulatory friction in destination markets is comparatively low: Hericium erinaceus is already an established functional-food and supplement ingredient in the US, EU and Japan, unlike the more novel Cordyceps species.
Sources
- IndiaMART — Lion's Mane mushroom (whole) pricing, New Delhi
- IndiaMART — Lion's Mane extract powder pricing, Nagpur
- ICAR-IIHR Mushroom Research Laboratory — Lion's Mane spawn (cultivation route)
Image status
A working reference photograph is in place, captured from a freely-licensed Wikimedia Commons source (File:Hericium erinaceus,Lion's Mane, Hedgehog Mushroom.jpg). Wikimedia Commons candidate — licence to be re-verified before use; not yet downloaded into this site (see build note). Treat this as a placeholder for marketing purposes: exact licence terms should be re-verified on the Commons file page, and original producer photography is recommended before final trade use.