GINSENG
Panax quinquefolius
COMMON NAMES: Five finger root, American ginseng, sang, ninsin, panax, pannag, red berry.
FEATURES; Indigenous to China, North America, East Asia, American ginseng grows naturally on the
slopes of ravines and other shady but well-drained places in hardwood forests, in varying abundance,
from eastern Canada to Maine and Minnesota and southward into the mountain regions of Georgia and
Carolina. In its wild state it grows 8–20 inches high, bearing three large leaflets at the top and two
smaller ones beneath.
Yellowish green clusters of flowers are produced in midsummer, followed by as many bright crimson
berries, which can be seen until the frost. They are edible and taste much like the ginseng root. The
berries contain 1–3 flattish wrinkled seeds the size of a small pea. The root is thick, spindle-shaped, 2–4
inches long, and ½–1 inch or more in thickness. The older specimens usually have branched protrusions
somewhat resembling a human form. It usually takes at least six years for the root to reach marketable
size. Can be cultivated from cracked or partly germinated seed. Ginseng is very shy and must be protected
from the sun. The roots should be dug in the autumn when they are not so full of sap.
MEDICINAL PART: Dried root.
SOLVENT: Water
BODILY INFLUENCE: Stimulant, demulcent, stomachic, nervine, aphrodisiac.
USES: In Ezekiel 27:17 we find ginseng was known to Judah in the marketplace of Israel. Trading was
done in wheat, honey, oil, balm, and “pannag,” or the all-healing ginseng. Certainly it has been known and
respected for centuries. Father Jartoux, in 1679, after he noticed Native Americans from the Ozarks and
Blue Ridge country employing ginseng as a medication, started exporting it to England. From there the
East India Company sent it around the Cape of Good Hope and on to the Orient.
Ginseng, combined with the juice of a good ripe pineapple, is superior as a treatment for indigestion. It
stimulates the healthy secretion of pepsin, thereby ensuring good digestion and forestalling the habit of
taking pepsin or other after-dinner pills to relieve the fullness and distress so common to the Americans.
Ginseng has the known ability to penetrate the delicate tissue our blood fails to oblige, thus arousing the
malfunction of the lymphatic glands.