Out to collect some Chaga on the River ..
Some other fungi on this Birch Tree …
This is not Chaga :
Chaga mushrooms have been used for centuries in Siberia and other parts of Asia as a medicine to boost immunity and improve overall health . Though ugly in appearance, the chaga mushroom is gaining popularity in the Western world for its potential health benefits. What’s more, a cup of tea made from chaga is packed with antioxidants.
Source: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/chaga-mushroom
Chaga looks like this :
Inonotus obliquus, commonly called chaga (a Latinisation of the Russian word чага), is a fungus in the family Hymenochaetaceae. It is parasitic on birch and other trees. The sterile conk is irregularly formed and resembles burnt charcoal. It is not the fruiting body of the fungus, but a sclerotium or mass of mycelium, mostly black because of a great amount of melanin.
Chemistry
The black sclerotium has large concentrations of melanin.Chaga contains extremely high concentrations of oxalate, 2800–11200 mg total oxalates/100 g sclerotium, one of the highest reported in any organism.