Book description
American Ginseng has a strange and perilous history. It has one of
the longest germination periods of any known species, and only two
environments in the world have offered the ideal growing conditions
for wild ginseng. The first was the forests of northern China, which
disappeared over a millennium ago, and the sole remaining habitat is
the Appalachian Mountain region of eastern North America, an area now
threatened by logging and mining. Chinese legend says that ginseng is
the child of lightning. The two elemental forces of water and fire
fight in an eternal struggle, pouring down rain and snow and blasting
the earth with lightning. If that lightning happens to strike a spring
of water, the water disappears and in its place grows a ginseng plant
-- the fusion of yin and yang, water and fire, darkness and light, and
the life force that moves the universe. American ginseng has become
perhaps the most treasured of all herbal medicines, promising good
health and longevity to those who consume it. Fortunes have been made
and lost on the plant, which was America's first export to China --
before our nation even existed. The strange, twisted, man-shaped root
today commands as much as two thousand dollars a pound in the hot,
noisy ginseng markets of Hong Kong, and a wealthy collector might pay
as much as ,000 for a single, perfect specimen. Ginseng Dreams: The
Secret World of America's Most Valuable Plant unfolds ginseng's past
and its future through the stories of seven people whose lives have
become inextricably bound to it: a huckster, a field researcher, a
farmer, a ginseng "missionary," a criminal investigator, a
broker, and a cancer researcher. Each of these individuals brings a
different perspective to the elusive root -- and each is consumed by a
different dream. Kristin Johannsen threads her way though remote
woodlands in the Appalachians to observe the fragile plants slowly
putting out leaves as part of a three-year growing cycle, during which
time the ginseng is vulnerable to both poachers and growing suburban
sprawl. She contrasts this with the huge commercial growing fields of
Marathon County, Wisconsin, where among potato fields and paper mills,
ninety percent of the country's ginseng is produced. Johannsen
explores the brisk black market trade in the panacean root and the
efforts to save the wild species and its native habitat, and she ends
her story in the laboratory, where researchers are investigating
ginseng's anti-cancer properties. An absorbing journey into the many
worlds of this mysterious and potent plant, Ginseng Dreams tells the
extraordinary story of America's little-known natural treasure and the
spell it casts on those who seek it.
"Kristin Johannsen has written a beautiful book that answers
every question I ever had about ginseng, and some I hadn't even
thought of yet. However, Johannsen has done more than create a font of
knowledge about ginseng. Instead she has provided us with a wonderful
study of a culture, preserving a way of life that may slip away far
too soon. This is a tender, informative, wise, and lovely book."
-- Silas House
