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Ginseng Dreams: The Secret World of America's Most Valuable Plant

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I grew up eating ginseng root and drinking ginseng tea, often being told of its curative and healthful properties. I always took such claims with a grain of salt, but occasionally I would hear of studies purporting to validate ginseng's restorative ability in the endurance of rats. Unknown to me then, an American variety of ginseng grows in the eastern U.S. and has been harvested and exported for over three hundred years. Here was a story waiting to be told, and Ms. Johannsen's "Ginseng Dreams" tells it from the perspective of both the plant and the people whose lives have fallen under its spell.

As the book's subtitle suggests, the focus of "Ginseng Dreams" is the ecology and economics of American ginseng, with particular emphasis on the preservation and cultivation of wild ginseng in Appalachia and Wisconsin. A highly valuable Chinese export, with prices reaching $500 a pound, American ginseng attracts poachers who take plants from public lands. Along with the destruction of ginseng's natural forest habitat, the combination of greed, urban development, and ginseng's need for precise growing conditions-- just the right amount of shade on a slope neither too steep for runoff of valuable nutrients nor too shallow to pool water and not too crowded with other ginseng plants, for starters--suggest a bleak future for wild American ginseng, especially when enforcement of existing laws protecting wild plants is impotent at best.

Johannsen writes with immediacy and vividly of her various ginseng excursions, whether trekking through the shady forests of Kentucky with a field researcher, visiting ginseng dealers in the oppressive heat of Hong Kong, or attending a class with eager-eyed entrepreneurs on ginseng cultivation. Each of the seven chapters tells the story of a different person who is intimately involved with a different aspect of our relationship with ginseng, e.g. its growth, cultivation, preservation, conservation, trade, and research. She fills in her reporting with ginseng facts, folklore, and history, tying in the ancient tradition of the root as the most revered of medicinal plants, with the current economics driving ginseng poachers, to modern research on the its potential anti-cancer properties. "Ginseng Dreams" reads like a good yarn, and like any good yarn, it carries a moral. Our increasing demand for ginseng, both local and global, and the lengths we are willing to go to fulfill them threaten the American ginseng's survival at the moment we are beginning to unlock its secrets and unfulfilled potential.

This book is a tour of Ginseng interviews with people who deal with, grow and have had some interest in the plant. It gives very little practicle hands on information for growing Ginseng.

The use and influence of ginseng in the lives of seven who have invested their lives and money in its promise is documented in a history which blends botany and economics under one cover. Ginseng is consumed by hundreds of millions in Asia daily and commands a hefty price, but despite its high selling price, the future of American ginseng is uncertain - threatened by environmental problems. Seven personal stories are used to illustrate ginseng's problems and potentials.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch