Some history from "How to Know the Wildflowers" (1922) by Mrs. William Starr Dana:

"This plant is well known by name, but is yearly becoming more scarce. The aromatic root is so greatly valued in China for its supposed power of combating fatigue and old age that it can only be gathered by the order of the emperor. The forked specimens are believed to be the most powerful, and their fancied likeness to the human form has obtained for the plant the Chinese title of Jin-chen (from which ginseng is a corruption), and the Indian one of Garan-toguen, both which, strangely enough, are said to signify, "like a man". The Canadian Jesuits first began to ship the roots of the American species to China, where they sold at about five dollars a pound. At present they are said to command about one-fifth of that price in the home market."

My grandfather and his brothers dug ginseng in Lincoln County, West Virginia to make extra money. My grandfather was born in 1923, a year after Mrs. Dana published the above quoted book. As she stated, it was already becoming scarce.

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It makes a pretty, low groundcover. I've only seen it once in southeast Pennsylvania in a state park in a beautiful climax woods of oak-hickory-yellow birch-hemlock in rich, acid soil. I won't say exactly where because some people would collect it for its roots. It should be propagated artificially so as to not hurt wild populations. and it would make a nice little ornamental perennial.

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