What is Ginseng
What is Ginseng?
what is ginseng?
Ginseng
root is native to eastern Asia and North America, and has been in use as a folk medicine and tonic amongst the peoples of China, Korea, Thailand, Viet Nam and Manchuria, as well as amongst Native Americans, for untold thousands of years. Frequently used as a potent preventative rather than a curative, it has also demonstrated tremendous therapeutic benefits for a wide number of conditions. If taken regularly it increases vitality, and can extend your life span. Shanghai
people believe it to give great energy and help remove heat in your body that has built up. The heat is like when you
have pimples, it’s your bodies way lof letting out the internal heat.
A perennial plant, ginseng is often found in heavily wooded areas and requires rich soil to thrive. Ginseng takes several years to mature, with most roots cultivated when the plant is between 3-10 years old. After too many years the
plant and its root can begin to degenerate, and the root may become pitted and wooden.
The plant itself is very attractive, with well shaped green leaves and bright red berries; however it is only the root that has any medicinal value. Its original name means Man Root, due to the shape of the ginseng root which strongly resembles the form of a human body.
Ginseng is a member of the Araliacae family. The American ginseng plant, Panax Quinquefolius, has become in such high demand in Asia that more than 85% of American grown ginseng is exported to asian markets.
GINSENG
The wild ginseng plant and the old-time woodsmen who hunted it for its valuable roots are both practically extinct. Nowadays, most people have
never heard the word ginseng; much less are they likely to recognize the plant or know anything of its history. Many of those former ginseng
hunters were also trappers. They trapped fur-bearing animals in late fall and winter when the quality of fur was at its best. Then, in summer and
early autumn, they used their outdoor skills to find and dig ginseng root for the drug market. The two occupations naturally went together. Fur
buyers, such as the old American Fur Company founded by John Jacob Astor, also bought and sold ginseng root.
The American ginseng trade was started in 1711 when a Jesuit Missionary among the Iroquois Indians in Canada received a letter from
another French missionary in China. In it were careful drawings and the description of a plant whose roots were regarded as a magic cure for all
sorts of human ailments, both mental and physical. He said the Chinese would pay almost anything for it, that it was very scarce, and was a
monopoly of the emperor for whom it was cultivated in closely guarded gardens. They called it "jin-chen, " meaning "shaped-like-a-man, "
because branched roots resembling a human form were supposed to be specially effective. In Canada the Indians soon found a ginseng closely
resembling the Asiatic species and the first shipment of its dried roots were sent to China in 1716.
The ginseng sends up a new stem each year from a perennial underground rootstock. This stem bears three palmately compound
leaves, each with five irregularly notched leaflets -- three larger leaflets and two smaller ones -- something like the leaf of a buckeye tree. In the
center, a globular cluster of 6 to 20 small yellowish-green flowers appear in midsummer, followed in autumn by half-inch ruby-red
berries. The root enlarges with age and each year's stem adds a new scar making it possible to read its age. At 5 years, roots are the size of a little
finger. One especially large root showing 28 scars weighed 12 ounces when fresh. Drying shrinks roots to 113 or 1/4 of their fresh weight.
Now extremely scarce, the plant is still native in rich woodlands from Quebec and Minnesota south to Arkansas and Georgia. It prefers north
slopes, shaded ravines, and is often associated with sugar maple, basswood and walnut trees. A few plants still grow in our forest
preserves but their location is a carefully guarded secret.
Ginseng is one of the very few drug plants exported from the United States, as well as one of the most costly. Until about 1900 the price
received by American "seng" hunters and shippers varied from roughly 50 cents to 4 dollars a pound for the dried root. Since then it has risen
to an all-time high of $24 in 1957. The entire American crop, about 100, 000 pounds annually, is shipped to wholesalers in Hong Kong who
distribute it in the Orient. The cost to the Chinese consumer is multiplied many times, often more than its weight in gold -- as much as
$400 an ounce for a forked root suggesting a human figure.
Ginseng is now grown in carefully tended and artificially shaded gardens by a few growers. The largest are From Brothers of
Hamburg, Wisconsin, who have 100 acres under cultivation. They also have an extensive After planting the seed, from 5 to 7 years are required to produce a
marketable root. At present the U. S. Pharmacopoeia says it has no medicinal value but we Americans should not laugh at the Chinese.
We swallow billions of pills each year for reasons equally silly.
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