Ginseng

Ginseng, the root of Panax Ginseng, a plant belonging to the ivy family, cultivated in Corea and Manchuria, and valued in China as a medicine, being sold at from 6 to 400 dollars an ounce. Its forked form may have suggested its possessing properties conducive to virility as in the case of the mandrake (q.v.); but it has, in fact, no active principle or medicinal action. The roots of another species, P. quinquafolium, are imported into China as a substitute from the United States.