[Macroscopic and microscopic characteristics of Chinese caterpillar fungus]

Chinese Caterpillar Fungus (CCF) is one of the rare Chinese traditional drugs. As the resource is reducing sharply, the price is rising higher and higher, and there have been much more adulterants in the markets, but until now we don't have a scientific and accurate research on the identification study for this drug. On the basis of resource investigation, during the study of the samples collected by ourselves and the specimens stored in the museum, using the macroscopic and microscopic methods, referring to the literatures of entomology, emphasizing on the characteristics of polypide part, we have studied this species in detail of the macroscopic characters such as the insertion position of the stroma part, the annulations and segments of the caterpillar, the abdominal leg, the pinaculum, and the microscopic characters of the body wall; firstly added the microscopic character of the crotchets on the planta of abdominal leg. The result turned out that the characters which we have studied are regular and stable, and it have laid the foundation for the powder products and patent medicines which have used the crude drug of CCF.