Certain mushrooms have long been valued as flavorful and nutritious foods by many societies worldwide. Furthermore, some of these societies, especially in the Far East, have long recognised that extracts from certain mushroom species possess health-promoting benefits and, consequently, use them as ingredients in many herbal medicines, such as traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). While approximately 14,000 species of mushrooms are believed to exist worldwide, at least 600 have been shown to possess various therapeutic properties, and the term "medicinal mushroom" is gaining worldwide recognition for such species. (The term medicinal mushroom was derived in the Far East but is now accepted, in broad terms, by Western medicine standards.) The most commercialised edible mushrooms that demonstrate principal medicinal or functional properties include species of Lentinus, Hericium, Grifola, Flammulina, Pleurotus, and Tremella, while others known only for their medicinal properties, such as Ganoderma spp., Schizophyllum commune, and Trametes (Coriolus) versicolor, are nonedible because of their coarse texture and bitter taste.