Ginseng is native to the mountain forests of East Asia, and the plant is cultivated in China, Korea, Japan and Russia. The very similar American ginseng is native to much of the United States and Canada. The drug material comes mainly from China and Korea, but also partly from their neighboring countries. In herbal medicine, one uses the dried roots of ginseng (ginseng radix).
Characteristics of the ginseng plant
Ginseng is a perennial up to 80 cm high with a single shoot and short rootstock. The palmate leaves have 1-4 fingers. Furthermore, the plant bears small white flowers in umbels and red berry-like drupes, each containing two seeds.
White and red ginseng
Of the many existing species of ginseng, Korean ginseng is the most highly valued. Of Korean ginseng, there is “white ginseng”, in which the roots are bleached, peeled and dried directly after harvesting, and “red ginseng”, in which the freshly harvested roots are first scalded for 1.5-4 hours before drying and show a translucent reddish color after drying.
Ginseng root as a medicine
The drug consists of cylindrical, relatively large roots that are often divided several times from the middle. The bark is light brown to light yellow on the outside or reddish-brown in the case of red ginseng. Inside, the root is white to light yellow, hard and brittle.
Ginseng root gives off a rather faint but pleasant odor. The root tastes bitter at first, later the taste changes to sweet and mucilaginous.
