Yesterday I had the pleasure to go wild Ginseng hunting with a couple of friends on their private land in a nearby county. I've always heard of ginseng but never thought much about where it comes from. It sounds Chinese.
As it turns out, there is an American Ginseng that grows in Tennessee, we are aware of it's presence on the farm but most of the 140 acres have gone unexplored. It was time to find more.
We were fortunate to take the ATV as far as it could take us before the timbered woods became too dense, and we had to continue on foot.
But why?
In China, the demand for ginseng is very high relative to its supply, and wild ginseng is preferred to cultivated, so it's not uncommon for the wholesale price of wild ginseng to reach $600 per pound. A cultivated half acre can bring in $100,000 for a crop that has grown to maturity after three years.
Before you invest in Ginseng Hunting tools, keep in mind it's illegal to harvest ginseng from any public land, national parks and most national forests in the south east. And wild ginseng is so valuable that poachers have turned it into something of an endangered species.
The rolling hills of middle Tennessee and the mountains of east Tennessee are perfect for growing wild ginseng. It prefers the north/northeast side of a hill in loose, well-drained, calcium-rich, fertile soil. It also prefers 80% shade, so the floor of thick woods are ideal for growing and finding the Plant.
This is also where you'll find venomous and non-poisonous snakes, ticks, mosquitoes, Poison Ivy, Virginia Creeper, thorns the size of nails on wild roses, and a variety of other perils.
And then you have to know what you are looking for. Wild ginseng looks SO MUCH like many other plants, namely Yellow Buckeye, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Virginia Creeper, Wild Sarsaparilla, and Black Snake root.
We celebrated finding a virgin patch of wild ginseng and took our GPS coordinates to remember the location. But we weren't completely convinced this is wild ginseng.
Wild ginseng is typically found near ferns, Poplar trees, and Pawpaw trees. And this plant was. It also was in the shade of the side of a hill with a creek at the bottom. It was well-drained. The leaves were shaped correctly, but wild ginseng leaves typically have more leaf stem showing before it attaches to the prong. Typically, but not always, depending on the age.
We knew it wasn't Virginia Creeper or Jack-in-the-Pulpit, but not sure about Buckeye or Wild Sarsaparilla.
Here are a couple of photos of certified Wild Ginger.
And here is Virginia Creeper and Jack-in-the-Pulpit.
(I apologize. I only took photos of the bloom, and not the leaves.)
Wild Ginseng has five leaves and the back two leaves are smaller. Leaves are attached to a prong and plants typically have three to five prongs. They grow up to two and a fourth feet tall, and have red berries in the late summer and fall. It is illegal to harvest Wild Ginseng out of season. The season is defined by each state and in Tennessee it's from August 15 to October 31. And selling season is from August 15 to March 15.
Can you see the large black snake we discovered? Thank goodness it wasn't a rattlesnake, copperhead, or cottonmouth. I shudder thinking about it.
Before you harvest a plant, you much first plant the berries which contain the seeds around the mother plant. Then carefully loosen the soil around the plant to dig it up in one piece. The root is what is so valuable, though I heard the leaves also have medicinal properties.
Wild Ginseng or not, it was still a fun day!
