White and Greenish 



early autumn. By these agents the plant has been distributed 

 from Newfoundland to the Carolinas, westward from Manitoba 

 to Missouri, which is not surprising when we remember that cer- 

 tain birds travel from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes in a 

 single night. While the true sarsaparilla of medicine should 

 come from a quite different herb that flourishes in Mexico and 

 South America, this one furnishes a commercial substitute enor- 

 mously used as a blood-purifier and cooling summer drink. Bur- 

 rowing rabbits delight to nibble the long, slender, fragrant roots. 



The Ginseng {Panax quinqtiefolium) — Aralia qninquefolia of 

 Gray — found in rich woods from Quebec to Alabama, and west- 

 ward to Nebraska — that is, where found at all, for much hunting 

 has all but exterminated it in many regions — bears a solitary 

 umbel of small yellowish-green, five-parted, polygamous flowers 

 in July and August at the end of a smooth stem about a foot high. 

 Bright crimson berries follow the clusters on the female plants in 

 early autumn. Three long-petioled leaves, which grow in a whorl 

 at the top of the low stem, are palmately divided into five thin, 

 ovate, pointed, and irregularly toothed leaflets. But it is the 

 deep fusiform root, simple or branched, about which the Ameri- 

 canized Chinese, at least, are most concerned. For centuries 

 Chinese physicians have ascribed miraculous virtues to the Man- 

 churian ginseng. Not only can it remove fatigue and restore 

 lost powers, but by its use veterans became frisky youths again 

 according to these wise men of the East. In short, they consider 

 it the panacea for all ills {Panax: pan=i\\\, aAo5= remedy) — the 

 source of immortality. Naturally the roots were and are in great 

 demand, especially such as branch so as to resemble the human 

 form. (Both the Chinese name Schin-sen, and Garan-toguen, the 

 Indian one, are said to mean like a man. Here is an interesting 

 clue for the ethnologists to follow ! ) Imperial edict prohibited 

 the Chinese from digging up their native plant lest it be ex- 

 terminated. So Jesuit missionaries, who discovered our similar 

 ginseng, were not slow in exporting it to China when it was 

 literally worth its weight in gold. Indeed, it is always sold by 

 weight — a fact on which the heathen Chinee "with ways that 

 are dark and tricks that are vain " not infrequently relies. China- 

 men, who gather large quantities in our Western States to sell 

 to the wholesale druggists for export, sometimes drill holes into 

 the largest roots, pour in melted lead, and plug up the drills so 

 ingeniously that druggists refuse to pay for a Chinaman's diggings 

 until they have handled and weighed each root separately. 



The Dwarf Ginseng, or Ground Nut {P. irifolium) — Aralia 

 trifolia of Gray — whose little white flowers are clustered in feath- 



221 



