1 64 



The Canadian Horticulturist. 



GINSENG. 



EW of our people had taken notice of a recent Act of 

 Parliament protecting the plant Ginseng, which provides 

 that a person gathering it between January first and Sep- 

 tember first in any year, may be fined not less than $5 or 

 more than $20. Prof. Panton has taken the trouble to 

 publish a valuable bulletin on the plant, which he first 

 describes as follows : — " Main stem about one foot long, 

 branches into these stakes at the summit, each three and 

 one-half inches long ; on the end of these are arranged 

 fur leaflets, borne on slender stalks an inch in length. The leaflets are then 

 smooth below, and of delicate structure ; two in each cluster are about two 

 inches long and others almost four, oval in general form, but tapering to a point 

 and doubled toothed along the edge. Rising from the main stem and in the 

 centre of the three compound leaves is a stalk three inches long bearing incon- 

 spicuous greenish white flowers, appearing not unlike a small head of white 

 clover. 



This single /lower stalk is an important point, for I have found some calling 

 a plant of this family ginseng (Aralia quinquefolia) which had four flower stalks 

 and belonged to an entirely diff'erent species, though of the same genus. 



The root of a specimen in the College herbarium is quite fleshy, rather 

 short (three inches) and from it arises the single stem already described. By 

 means of the above descriptions, technical and popular, together with the accom- 

 panying cut the reader will readily identify the plant ginseng from other plants 

 in the vicinity. 



Fig. 657. — Ginseng {Aralia quinqitejolia.) 



