Categories: American GinsengNative Medicinal PlantsOzark Native PlantsWoodland Plants

Ginseng in Early September

What Does Ginseng Look Like in Early September?

I went out to check on a few patches and take some photos. Legal digging season started on Sept. 1, but we don’t dig ours yet. The colonies are still small and although some are of legal age, there aren’t enough to make it worth the time and effort digging.

Instead, I spread seeds and take pictures and write about them. The wild colonies that live further away and up in the hills have already been protected by defoliating them. Not by me, but by the diggers I know have gone through there already and gotten what they wanted of them. They do that to keep anyone from coming after them from finding the plants and digging more.

Here’s a few pictures of ginseng in early September. These are in the test plot that are growing under the cedar trees, where they aren’t really supposed to like growing.

A yearling ginseng. That’s a young virginia creeper to the lower right, and an older ginseng barely in the photo at the upper right.

Many of the ones under the cedars still have berries. The plants are just now beginning to turn yellow but haven’t begun to drop leaves yet.

A three-prong ginseng with berries still, and lots of younger ones surrounding.

2015 Roots

And here’s a photo someone sent me of a nice root they’d just dug and cleaned, making sure to leave the root hairs intact. The photo is poor but you can see it’s a nice root. If you have some interesting ones you’d like to share, email them to me at madison(at)wildozark-dot-com and I’ll put them on the next post.

A good sized and old Ozark ginseng root. The photo isn’t clear enough for me to see the bud scars, but from what I can see, it looks about 18 years old. May be more or less. The neck is at the top with the next year’s bud at the very top.

Root Prices 2015

I’ve updated the 2015 Prices page with the latest information from one of our local buyers. If you have prices in your neck of the woods, please leave a comment on that page to let everyone know. Thanks!

Madison Woods