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Background
Only species with Ganoderma in their scientific name are lingzhi
Modern science uses spore shape and DNA identification to decide whether a mushroom is lingzhi. The genus Ganoderma has close to 200 species, but only a few, such as red lingzhi and purple lingzhi, are commonly used. Not everything with “zhi” (芝) in its name is lingzhi: the “thousand-year lingzhi” sold on the market and Antrodia (niu zhang zhi), for example, do not belong to the genus Ganoderma.
Book on lingzhiSummarized from a published book; verifiable by title and ISBNPublished book · see title and ISBN in the sourceHow the study was done
Describes where lingzhi sits in taxonomy, and research using DNA fingerprinting to trace the “family relationships” of lingzhi.
What the researchers say
Scholars still disagree about the scientific name of China’s red lingzhi: some researchers propose Ganoderma lingzhi, while others hold that this name corresponds to Ganoderma tsugae (song shan lingzhi).
Source
Wu Tingyao, reviewed by Hsu Rey-Shyang, 灵芝，妙不可言 [Lingzhi: Wonderful Beyond Words], People’s Medical Publishing House, 2017, ISBN 978-7-117-24242-4, Ch. 1; Lin Zhibin (ed.), 灵芝从神奇到科学 [Lingzhi: From Mystery to Science], 3rd ed., Peking University Medical Press, 2018, ISBN 978-7-5659-1844-5, Ch. 3
The two books agree; the scientific name is academically disputed Last updated: 2026-10-06