Wildcrafted Gan Cao and Dan Shen

Let's face it: plants don't naturally grow in rows. We put them there because it's easier to harvest and can maximize yield. A licorice plant sitting in a field among thousands of other licorice plants is like a lion in a zoo - it's still a lion, but does it behave like a lion would in the wild? Of course not. While it's much easier to observe animal behavior than it is to see what's going on with the chemical constituents of a plant, you can bet that a plant you pick from the wild is going to be much more robust than a plant you grow on a farm.

Wildcrafting is an intermediate step between farming and simply gathering. Standards vary from place to place, but essentially you put the plants in their natural environment and do as little to them as possible. No chemicals, no weeding, no grow lights, no animal traps. When they're ready, you harvest some and leave the rest to keep growing. Take a look at this ginseng company in Western Maryland for a good explanation of how they wildcraft their American ginseng.

Fat Turtle Herb Company currently carries wildcrafted Gan Cao and wildcrafted Dan Shen as our normal everyday inventory. No need to ask for the good stuff - it's in every order!

Sanging in Illinois

No video? Watch it at youtube

Gathering wild American ginseng has been a hobby for many and occupation for some for hundreds of years (originally learned, I'm guessing, from Native Americans - they were here first, after all). Ginseng is a very rare and precious herb, and getting more rare as the years go by. That makes this video all the more remarkable. As the narrator says, for someone to show you where he collects ginseng is almost unheard of. Take a look.

Plants are Important

An archaeologist and a botanist have teamed up to study artwork from the Mayan Classical period, dating from 250 BCE to 900 CE.

You might wonder, what is a botanist doing studying ancient art? Turns out the Mayans created lots of ceramic pieces depicting various plants of the rain forest, many with such accuracy that the genus and species of the plants can be determined. The scientists are trying to identify which plants were of importance to the people, in "hopes [that] the research will unveil secrets known to the Maya that have become lost in time."

What kind of secrets are they looking for? The archaeologist Charles Zadir says:

The Maya have lived and used rainforest plants to heal themselves for thousands of years. We are just beginning to understand some of their secrets.

That's great! Plants are awesome! It's wonderful that there are people out there advocating for the preservation of the rain forest and for research into the importance of plants in our lives.

But wait... keep reading:

This research has already been of interest to pharmaceutical companies that are looking to extract alkaloids from plants that were important to the ancient Maya.

Aw, man! Just when you thought that you could escape the clutches of greed, the truth comes out. In the researchers' defense, they probably had to provide some lucrative justification for the work that they're doing, otherwise they wouldn't get funding. But, it just irks me that there always has to be some kind of monetary motive.

Excellent Article on Ginseng

Three triumphant ginseng roots stand on the corpses of their defeated enemies.

"Million Dollar Man Root" was published last year in the Washington City Paper, D.C.'s free weekly. The story centers around Harding's Ginseng Farm in Rockville, Maryland, which raises wild-simulated American ginseng (西洋参 Xi Yang Shen, also known as 花期参 Hua Qi Shen). There are many hilarious and informative bits, and even if you're an acupuncturist and/or herbalist you'll probably learn something new.

Chi, in traditional Asian medicine, is the energy that sustains life. Of course, one of the most common motivations for taking ginseng is to increase the type of energy that creates life. Over dinner one night I asked my girlfriend to think back to when we first started dating. I began taking ginseng about a month into our relationship. Does she remember any change in the firmness of my erections around then?

“I refuse to answer that question,” she says.

“So what you’re saying is that my erections were incredibly firm and robust right from Day 1?”

She stares at me blankly for a moment, shakes her head, and then goes back to her meal.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I say.

The author, Franklin Schneider, doesn't make any distinction between American ginseng (panax quinquefolis) and Asian ginseng (panax ginseng), and as far as I can tell neither does Mr. Harding's website.

TCM's materia medica describes American ginseng as cool in nature and milder than Asian ginseng, which is warm and stronger for tonifying qi. Mr. Harding says "Believe me, it’ll make you into a real big man. A bigger man!" but is ginseng a guaranteed sexual tonic? Chinese medicine professionals know the answer is no, despite ginseng's miraculous properties.

If you're generally in good health, just a little run down with low energy, a low dose of ginseng may be a great way to stimulate your qi. But low sexual desire and low sexual ability has many different etiologies, and qi deficiency is just one. In some cases, especially Damp Heat accumulation or Liver Qi stagnation, ginseng may make your situation worse. For best results, do your own research, and then see a Chinese medicine professional, designated by the L.Ac after their name, which stands for Licensed Acupuncturist. All L.Acs in the state of California and most L.Acs in other states have extensive herbology training and can determine what kind of ginseng, if any, is best for you.