PANAX, a genus of the ivy tribe of plants, of the natural order Ifederacete, viz.— Aculesta, China. Fruticosum, L., Java.
Arborcum, N. Zealand. Longinsomum, N. Zealand.
Cochleata, D.C., Java. Palrnatum, R.,Chittagong.
Digitatum, R., Sylhet. Qttinquefoliurn, China..
Fragrans, R., Khassya.
The species of Panax are herbs, shrubs, and trees, having the leaves and inflorescence variable. The plants of this family are not possessed of very decided medical properties, though the roots of all are said to possess medicinal qualities, and are much esteemed by the Chinese for their beneficial influence on the nerves.
Panax fragrans, Rotb., Gooti - soon*, litsn., a shrub, with fragrant flowers of a green colour, a native of Nepal.
Panax fruncosum, Linn., is used in China and Cochin - China as a febrifuge, and as an astringent tonic. It has a shrubby, unarmed stem. It is a native of the Moluccas., the islands of Termite, Java, and Amboyna, and is commonly grown in Indian gardens, and easily propagated from cuttings.
Panax pseudo - ginseng. Dr. Wallich has discovered this species in Nepal ; it is closely allied to P. quinquefolius.
Pa n ax quinquifolium.
Auroliana Canadensis. I Ginseng, . . . . CHIN.
This plant is about a foot high, with glabrous, straight, simple stalks, terminating in three leaves, each composed of six uneven leaflets, a little pedicelled, oval, lanceolate, acute, and toothed at the edge. The flowers are borne on a central peduncle, and disposed in an umbel. The berries are kidney-shaped, red, compressed, crowned with the calyx and stones, and containing two semicircular seeds. It is a well-known plant. The roots are about the thickness of the finger, like those of parsley, of a whitish-yellow colour externally, white within, two to three inches long, wrinkled, or with rings, often divided into two branches, rarely into three or four, and these presenting a slight likeness to the human form, whence the Chinese name is derived ; the paren chyme is formed of a horny and compact tissue, displaying some resinous points. Above the
neck is a knotty twisted tissue formed by the remains of the old stalks. The odour is sweet and weakly aromatic, the taste saccharine, some what like that of liquorice, subsequently bitter, and rather aromatic. The root of an umbelli ferous plant, the Shim ninsi, is often mixed in the druggists' shops, or mistaken otherwise for the ginseng ; the essential difference consists in the ginseng having the neck covered with fibrous threads, the remnants of the cortical part of the stalk. The root abounds in gum and starch, and has a little resin and essential oil. The root, without any obvious cause, has attained the high est celebrity and esteem among Chinese for its alleged medicinal virtues. The Dutch brought it from Japan in 1640, but the Japanese themselves were indebted for it to China. The plant grows in the great forests of Tartary between lat. 39° and 47° N., but has also been found in abundance in Virginia and Canada, and the roots are now cheap in China. The Chinese name the root the pure spirit of the earth,' the recipe of immortality,' the ' queen of plants,' etc., and regard it as a panacea for all diseases. In A.D. 1709 the emperor of China commissioned 10,000 Tartars to go in quest of as much of this root as they could find ; each one was to give two pounds of the best of it to the emperor, and to sell the rest for its own weight in fine silver. The roots enter into the composition of every Chinese medicine. It is reckoned a stimulant and restorative. By Euro peans and Americans, however, it is looked upon as a mere succulent, similar in its qualities to liquorice.—Eng. Cyc.; Royle's Ill. Him. Bet.; O'Sh. p. 373 ; Smith, Mat. Med.; Tr. Med. Soc. Cal. ; Pl. As. Rare ii. p. 30; Eng. Cyc.; Riddell; Voigt.