Learn More: Herbal Remedies
Herbs Called Ginseng
There are at least eight species and three varieties of the genus Panax (Vigano and Ceppi, 1994). They grow in the central Himalayas, China, Korea, Japan, and North America and include the following species:
Botanical Name | Common Names | |||||||||
| P. ginseng | Oriental ginseng; ren shen; Chinese ginseng; Korean ginseng | |||||||||
| P. quinquefolium | American ginseng; ren shen | |||||||||
| P. notoginseng | san qui ginseng; tienchi; tienchi ginseng; sanchi ginseng | |||||||||
| P. pseudoginseng | san qui | |||||||||
| P. zingigerensis | ||||||||||
| P. trifolus | ||||||||||
| P. stipuleanatus | ||||||||||
| P. japonicus | ||||||||||
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The word ginseng is frequently used for herbs other than those of the genus Panax:
Botanical Name |
Common Name |
|
| Eleutherococcus senticosus |
Siberian ginseng, which is in the same family as Panax, namely Araliaceae | |
| Pfaffia paniculata | Brazilian ginseng |
Neither Brazilian nor Siberian ginseng contains ginsenosides. However, E. senticosus contains active substances summarily called eleutherosides. Tyler (1994) suggests that knowledgeable people increasingly are trying to avoid confusion by dropping the designation "Siberian ginseng" for Eleutherococcus senticosus and calling the herb "Eleuthero" instead.
