Fungus is peak prize for alpine herders

The city is a key site for the expensive ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine. The harvest season lasts 45 days. For local herdsmen, collecting this precious fungus offers them seasonal jobs and increases their income.

Each dawn, local herders fasten cloth sacks to their waists and ascend the mountains with small hoes. The fungus reveals itself only through a faint brown tip protruding from the soil, barely visible against the alpine meadows. For hours, they crawl on hands and knees, scanning the ground inch by inch.

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