American Ginseng

American ginseng is a small herbaceous perennial of the ivy family, Araliaceae, at home in south-eastern Canada and the eastern United States, where it keeps to the deep shade of deciduous hardwood forest, above all in the Appalachians and the Ozarks. It stands six to eighteen inches tall, usually with three compound leaves of three to five leaflets each, and its fragrant root is shaped like a little parsnip and divides with age. It flowers in July, and its berries ripen to deep red by September. The Jesuit missionary Joseph-François Lafitau found it near Montreal in 1716 with the help of the Haudenosaunee, whose name for it means 'resembles man', and by 1720 roots from Quebec were going to China, beginning a trade with Asia now three centuries old. Overharvesting and lost habitat have made the wild plant rare; it is listed under CITES Appendix II, is endangered in Canada, and has been grown as a crop since the late nineteenth century. Among the Pawnee, Meskwaki, Delaware and Mohegan it served both as medicine and in love charms. In magic the root is carried to draw love, guard health and secure sexual potency, burned to drive off evil spirits and break hexes, or charged with a wish and thrown into running water.