American Ginseng: Benefits, Uses & Survival of a Legendary Root

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Why have so many herbalists stopped using American ginseng — and what would it mean to welcome it back?

In this episode, I sat down with Appalachian herbalist Phyllis Light to discuss American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius), an herb that her family has had an intimate relationship with for generations. Wow, what a wealth of information she had to share about this legendary herb! Our conversation wound through the folk history of ginseng’s use in Appalachia, ginseng trade routes, and the many, many ways we can work with it to benefit our health. Phyllis also explored the widespread belief that American ginseng is ‘too endangered to use’—and why the truth is more complex than we might think.

Phyllis shared about several different herbal preparations of American ginseng, including her recipe for Ginseng Honey—a simple and delicious way to work with this beloved herb. You can download your beautifully illustrated recipe card in the  section below.

There are so many health benefits of American ginseng! Here are just a few reasons you might want to work with American ginseng:

► To improve memory and cognitive ability

► To benefit your immune system (and even help antibiotics work better!)

► To help you build strength and muscle mass, boost energy, and increase endurance

To learn even more ways that you can work with American ginseng, be sure to check out the entire episode!

By the end of this episode, you’ll know:

► How the global ginseng market impacts use of American ginseng in the United States

► Why Phyllis considers American ginseng to be a “panacea herb”

► How American ginseng can be worked with to benefit sleep—and the particular kind of insomnia that it is most appropriate for

► When it’s best to use American ginseng on its own, and when to formulate it with other herbs

► The legal and ethical implications of buying wildcrafted American ginseng (or of wildcrafting your own!)

► and so much more…

For those of you who don’t know her, Phyllis D. Light, a fourth-generation herbalist and healer, has studied and worked with herbs, foods, and other healing techniques for over 30 years. She is traditionally trained in Southern Folk Medicine with lessons from her grandmother as well as Tommie Bass, a renowned Southern herbalist. 

Phyllis has a master’s degree from the University of Alabama in Health Studies, nutrition and healthcare.  She has taught CEU classes for allied healthcare professionals. She is director of the Appalachian Center for Natural Health and is the author of Southern Folk Medicine: Healing Traditions from Appalachian Fields and Forests.

I can’t wait to share our conversation with you today!

Click here to access the audio-only page.

-- TIMESTAMPS -- for Health Benefits of American Ginseng

• 0:37 - Introduction to Phyllis Light
• 1:20 - Stories of Phyllis’ life growing up with Appalachian folk herbalism
• 27:30 - American ginseng in global trade and commerce
• 41:11 - American ginseng for digestion
• 47:30 - American ginseng for sleep
• 54:23 - Ginseng Honey recipe
• 1:04:03 - More medicinal benefits of American ginseng
• 1:07:19 - Legal & ethical implications of wildcrafting ginseng
• 1:16:11 - Phyllis’ current herbal projects
• 1:23:40 - Advice Phyllis would give to young herbalists
• 1:28:53 - Student spotlight
• 1:30:05 - Herbal tidbit

Get Your Free Recipe!

Connect with Phyllis

• Website | PhyllisDLight.com
• Instagram | @phyllisdlight
• Facebook | Phyllis Dewon Light, MA
• TikTok | @phyllisdlight

Transcript of the 'Health Benefits of American Ginseng' Video

Welcome to the Herbs with Rosalee Podcast, a show exploring how herbs heal as medicine, as food and through connecting with the living world around you. American ginseng has been called many things: a root of vitality, a plant of legend, and a commodity worth its weight in gold. 

Well, in this episode, Phyllis Light shares stories of this revered herb, weaving together folk wisdom, trade routes, and the complicated dance of conservation. This conversation is rich with history, reverence, and, of course, love for the living world, and I can’t wait for you to join us. If you enjoy this episode, please give it a thumbs up so more plant lovers can find us, and be sure to stay tuned in to the very end for your herbal tidbit. 

Rosalee de la Forêt: 

Phyllis, I’m so glad to have you back on the show. Thank you so much for being here. 

Phyllis Light:

Thank you for having me again. I appreciate it. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Well, I, in anticipation of being with you again, I picked up your book once again, and have been reading through it, and just like once again, am so taken with the amount of wisdom that’s in this book. This time, something that also really struck me is how great the stories are. Some of these, like the story of you almost dying, for example, with the double pneumonia, that’s a good story. I mean—it’s an edge-of-your-seater. I’m not saying it was a good thing that that happened to you, but it was edge-of-your-seater. So many lovely stories, and I would love to hear some more stories of just your life growing up as an herbalist, and just having that be a part of—medicine being a part of the everyday, and what that might have been like. I kind of assumed that growing up was just everyday you didn’t know any different, but maybe in retrospect, there are some things that maybe your family did or that was in the community, that now looking back, you’re like, “Oh, that’s different,” than maybe other people necessarily experience. 

Phyllis Light:

Well, you know, in my family, it was my dad’s side of the family that were the midwives and herbalists, and my dad, foraging and wildcrafting. My mama’s side of the family was all about prayer and being a good Christian, but this is like an Appalachian Southern Christian. It’s like a different world. It’s like you wouldn’t recognize it today. There was a lot of prayer and—but there was also a lot of—it was charismatic. There was the power of God can move you and you’ll move across the floor. You’ll lay hands on somebody, there’s a lot of healing. But there was also dream time. “What did you dream last night? Tell me.” Everyday at the breakfast table, my mom would be like, “This is what I dreamed. What did you dream?” I mean, that was common, so dream interpretation was a big part of growing up, but it was part of the community because that was—in the community signs were everywhere. So, the bird flew this way. That was a sign. Or, “Oh, my God. It rained here, but not there” that was a sign, or the lightning struck, that was a sign. Every single thing was a sign. That is still a big part of the community where I’m at. It is like, “This is a sign.” I grew up with signs and dreams, and kind of like this Christian, magical point of view of the world, on my mom’s side of the family, and that kind of met my dad’s side of the family that was really rooted in the earth and herbs, and healing ways, and midwives. Those were two different groups that came together that made me and my brothers and sisters. Just from that point of view, I think it’s kind of—kind of unique. 

Like my Aunt Sadie on my mom’s side of the family, if it didn’t rain for a week or two and the farmers in the area were getting worried—and this is kind of like a very poverty area—almost everybody does agriculture, so this is a big deal if it doesn’t rain. My Aunt Sadie would be the one that the folks would come to and say, “Can you make it rain?” She would go out in the woods and she would find snakes. She would kill snakes and she would bring them back. She would hang them either over a fence or over a tree limb and it would rain. Within two or three days, it would rain. That was her famous thing. Once I saw a EPA photograph—was it EPA? Yeah—of The Depression era when they went out and did photographs and kind of cataloged the new deal stuff with Roosevelt sending people out. I saw a pasture fence with snakes lined up across it. I was going like, “Yes! This was happening in someplace else too.” It wasn’t just my Aunt Sadie. It was like—this was like community. It was like region-wide. These were kind of the superstitions that are kind of magical things that were also present at the same time. 

There was a great deal of myth and mythology around snakes, especially rattlesnakes. Some of that came from the Native American influence, because in Ireland, they didn’t really have snakes, and so in Europe, there weren’t all these bad snakes. When the settlers came over and they were—they didn’t have this awareness of all the different bad snakes in Alabama. There are five of them that can either can put you in the hospital or kill you, so we always have to be aware of snakes when we’re wild foraging. I’m totally aware of snakes all the time. Even when I was visiting Kat Maier once in Virginia, and we were out for a walk and she goes, “Let’s cross this field,” and I’m like, “Wait. What about the snakes?” She was like, “We don’t—we don’t worry about snakes here in the city.” I’m like, “Whoa! I do!”

Sp this kind of awareness also that here’s this vast nature. Here’s this amazing nature out there, but we always had to be aware of the dangers in nature when we were harvesting. It wasn’t, “Oh, let’s go stroll around and dig American ginseng.” It was unless—we have to be on the lookout for rattlesnakes. We have to be on the lookout for the coyotes. We have to be on the lookout for that, so it was not as safe and simple as maybe some people think wild foraging is. It might be safe and simple in other parts of the country, but we always have to be aware they’re here. Even today, we have to be aware of the wild things that we are sharing nature with. It’s important we give them their space. They give us our space. But I have never went out to hunt, for example, ginseng—which we’ll be talking about—without seeing a rattlesnake. I have never not seen a rattlesnake ginseng gathering, so we always carried—like when the family went out to wildcraft, granddaddy always carried a snake stick. We had snake sticks just to not necessarily kill the snake, but to—my grandfather would—had a long staff, which helped him walk up and down the mountains, but also was called the “snake stick.” He could do this and flip the snake way over yonder out of our way, and we would just keep on going. That was kind of the climate, but it’s still the climate today. If anybody forages here, you know you have to do this. We have water moccasins, copperheads, rattlesnakes, pygmy rattlesnakes, timber rattle—more than one kind of rattlesnake. We have to have this awareness that there are things we share nature with, and they have their space, we have ours. And it’s about trying to get along and be in a relationship, so that we can share the same space and we can go collect our herbs, and they can go do what they do. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

When you talk about signs and superstitions, which you do have a chapter about that in your book too—when you talk about that, how I interpret that is that to me, that means it’s a community of people who are connected to the earth around them, because if we spend all of our time in a cubicle in a skyscraper, just indoors and sheltered from the so-called “outside world,” then we don’t have the opportunity to recognize the magic that’s there; recognize the signs that are inherently there. 

Phyllis Light:

That’s right. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

So when I hear that I think that’s a community very connected to the earth. 

Phyllis Light:

It is. It is, and it’s a region. It’s not just the community where I live. It’s really all of the Deep South, and then parts of the—obviously, the Appalachian, so it’s like region-wide. I mean, I could go to North Carolina and go to a local person, “Oh, my God! Did you see that? That was a sign,” and they would be like, “Oh, yeah. I agree.” 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Speaking of snakes, I just have the cliché. I’m terrified of snakes, which I think keeps me a healthy distance from them. We have rattlesnakes here, so I’m very aware of them. Like you said, it’s not something like—I wouldn’t go traipse through a long, grassy field. 

Phyllis Light:

That’s right. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Especially, in certain areas and stuff. I was just in Ireland and I was walking for a lot of that time, and I would see something on the road ahead of me, and I’d be ready to like (jumps)—I’d be like, “Ohh, there are no snakes here.” Which was so soothing to my nervous system, versus, I was also in Arkansas this year and I was a little bit terrified of everything because it’s new—everything is new to me. I’ve never been there, so between the snakes, and the ticks, and the chiggers, I just kind of walked in the middle of the road. I would keep it—I was very much everywhere making sure that [unclear]

Phyllis Light:

That’s it, and I can totally understand that, but Arkansas, the Ozarks, especially—I’m assuming you—maybe you’re around the Ozarks somewhere. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

 I was, yeah. 

Phyllis Light:

That is so much like Appalachia. I just feel home there when I go there. It’s like, “Oh, okay. Pretty much the same plants. It’s pretty much the same looking terrain. Pretty much the same animals, except the ticks are a little different.” 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah, the people were so nice even if the chiggers aren’t. 

Phyllis Light:

Oh no, did you get chiggers?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I did not. I did not. I was very—I was very much like, again, I just kind of walked in the—I was on these old rural roads. I literally walked on the road and just didn’t really go traipsing out there. 

I have another question for you. This is kind of a personal interest. I love herbal energetics. I feel very grateful that I learned it pretty early on in my herbal studies, but I wasn’t—I didn’t first learn it at first. The herbalism I was taught at first was like herbal actions, which didn’t necessarily—like learning about something is a vulnerary or something is a demulcent. 

Phyllis Light:

Right, right. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Sometimes there are herbal energetics within there, but it wasn’t pointed. It wasn’t very out there. You grew up with herbal energetics, it’s woven into the Southern folk medicine. I’m just—I would love to just hear a little bit about that. Again, I imagine it was just everyday growing up, but maybe reflections now of like realizing that was a little bit different than some other herbalists might have learned. 

Phyllis Light:

Yeah, because it was just woven into the everyday language. There wasn’t any separation when you talk about hot, cold, wet, dry. It was just woven into the language of everybody. “Hot-tempered.” There were all these phrases and sayings that went along with what you call “energetics,” I just call “language,” or “That person is hot to trot,” or the “backdoor trot,” or “blowing hot and cold.” I mean, this would just be phrases within the conversation, and still is, to a great extent, but not as much as it used to be because then everybody knew what they meant. If somebody is blowing hot and cold, you know what they—what that meant as far as their personality went. That said it all. That was like pages of their personality condensed to one phrase, and it was just the common language, which I like to call the “humoral language.” It was—obviously, it had a European influence, but it was also Native American. It’s also indigenous. It’s also African. I think every culture that lives close to the land, kind of shares that language because those four qualities or actions are common to all—all indigenous medical systems around the world. Everybody knows about—pardon? 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

It’s just like an observation of daily life, really.

Phyllis Light:

It is. It is, absolutely. It’s hot. It’s cold. It’s warm. It’s some place in the middle. It’s a range. It’s wet. It’s dry, the weather. There’s an expression here that it’s too cold to snow. Now, what does that mean? Somebody in the north would go, “It’s never too cold to snow,” but here, we know exactly what that means. It actually means it’s too dry to snow; that it’s so cold that there’s no humidity in the air. “It’s too cold to snow” just simply means no humidity. Everybody knows what that means. You don’t have to explain it to anyone, although I’ve had to explain that to people moving into the area or when I go outside the area, but it’s just kind of like that common language that we share in this region. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

You had mentioned in our first episode that you had spent—you learned so much, lots of your herbalism from your family. You learned lots from Tommy, and it wasn’t until much later that you got introduced to the wider herbalist world.

Phyllis Light:

Yeah.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I’m curious at what point did you realize a lot of herbalists today aren’t being—they didn’t grow up with this humoral language?

Phyllis Light:

The first time I realized that, I had been invited to the International when Rosemary Gladstar was running the International. She had caught wind of me through Matthew Wood because I had met Matthew first, and invited me up there. I was just kind of shocked to realize that all these people that were at the conference—hundreds of people were all just learning about herbs; that this had been something they had chosen to learn. It wasn’t a common thing that everybody knew a little bit about. Even though I grew up with herbalism in a family of practitioners, I grew up in a time period where every family had their home remedies based on herbs. So, every family knew a little bit. I’m introduced to this world where people are trying to reclaim something they feel like they’ve lost. The main gist of what I’ve seen as—was Traditional Chinese Medicine was the main thing being taught at the conference. There were other modalities from different cultures because Rosemary, at that time, always brought people in from around the world; at least, somebody from Europe. Juliet would come—various people. But it was a shock to me to realize these people don’t really—they didn’t grow up with it. They don’t really know anything about it so they were coming here to learn. It was surprising. It was awesome too that they were willing to get out and travel and spend money to learn about herbs, and I’m like, I just grew up with it! Nobody had to spend money to learn it, but no, it was an awesome thing. 

On one hand, I was just flabbergasted that there were so many people that didn’t know anything about herbs. I was a little upset. I’m going to have to tell you I was a little upset that the teachers—the majority of the teachers were saying, “There is no American system, so, hey, let’s learn here and there. Let’s learn TCM,” and I’m going, “Here, here! We have Southern folk medicine.” It’s always been there and it never went away, but the South was so isolated that people just kind of forgot that, or weren’t aware of it, or didn’t know anybody from the South that knew, but it was already here. Then I was also very impressed that people were trying to embrace the natural world and natural healing, so a lot of mixed emotions at my first herb conference, but I was like, yeah. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I can only imagine, Phyllis, what that must have been like for you. I wish I could have been the fly on the wall of your inner thoughts at that conference. What a blessing and a shock and an amazement, and so many things. 

Phyllis Light:

It was a lot. It was a lot to take in, but it was good! It was exciting also to see all these people gathered wanting to learn. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Well again, your book is so fabulous. There are whole sections dedicated to Southern folk medicine and the energetics. There’s also a section about the different cultural influences. You’ve kind of already named some of them here from Europe to Native Americans, to African influence. I’m sure there’s more that I’m missing. I’m curious at what point did you learn about all of these different influences on the system as medicine? Because, again, I just imagine you learning from your family, and maybe not learning the historical background at first. It was just a way of life, and so I’m curious. 

Phyllis Light:

It just was a way of life and the time period when I was growing up, there were—there were white people. There were black people. There were Native people. That was the mix of the influences around, but they were—but everybody lived the same way. It was a poor area. Everybody grew their own food. Everybody did this. Everybody did that. Everybody went to church. It was the same lifestyle. We were all poor. We all had to—nobody had indoor plumbing. It didn’t matter at that point, typically, what color you were. You either owned land or you didn’t own land, and somebody else owned the land, you had to work the land. I had one grandfather who was a sharecropper, but we were all kind of on the same boat. I didn’t think about us being different cultures when I was growing up. We were all just the same. What’s the difference? Our mamas had to make our clothes. Nobody could afford to go to the store and buy a dress. Good Lord! You had to make your own clothes. Your mama made your own clothes. Your mama taught you how to sew. It was the same regardless of what culture you wanted to look at. It wasn’t until the civil rights movement kind of blew through the South, and I say that in a very kind of humoral way because it was like fiery and violent, and there was a lot going on. I brought a friend home from community—I went to community college out of high school. Must have been about 18 and I brought my best friend home. We stopped at the local store on the way in to get gas and to go in and get a candy bar and a coke, and go to my house and mama’s cooking supper for us. The next day, my mama got a call from the KKK and they said, “If we see another black person at your house, we are going to burn your house down.” 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wow.

Phyllis Light:

So, that was also the time period I grew up in, and that was the first time that I had this sudden mental awakening of—even though we all lived the same way, even though nobody had anybody, even though all of our mamas had to make our clothes, we all went to the outhouse, nobody had running water—there was this division within the South. So, there was this division. I have other stories along that line. I’ve seen crosses being burned and car wrecks and people’s—my uncles on my dad’s side of the family is of native heritage. My grandmother had 11 kids, two girls—oh, God—and nine boys, and of 11 children, only seven made it to adulthood because she lost that many kids. She lost four kids to childhood illnesses during that time period that they died by the time they were two years old. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wow.

Phyllis Light:

Yeah, but that was a common thing. As kind of a rabbit side hole here, a sidetrack, I have often take herb students to—on an herb walk. We go up the side of this mountain and look at black cohosh. We’re looking at wild ginger. We’re looking at skullcap. We’re looking at all these plants. We get to the top, and there’s an old, old graveyard, and so I say to my students, “Go count the baby graves.” It’s just heartbreaking to count, to see all the babies that never made it out of the infancy. This had nothing to do with vaccines because this is before vaccines. There weren’t these contagious diseases. I mean, there were, but in the isolated community, this was just poverty and poor hygiene, and getting sick and no medical care. It’s just all these other things and these babies died. It was that kind of—that was the world I grew up in and you learned to adapt. It wasn’t until I got older—back to the original question—and I had some maturity on me that—and I had some education under my belt, and I look at the broader history of the South through the eyes of scholars, that I went, “Oh,” and the light bulb went off. I started investigating what each group brought in, but it took a few years to be able to do that. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wow. That’s interesting. So, a lot of that work is the light bulb going off for you and you were kind of putting the pieces together. 

Phyllis Light:

Yeah, and then investigating the history, and then making my own somewhat scholary—scholarly? Investigation and research into the different cultures and the use of herbs in home remedies, and tracing back and just working my way back. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thank you so much for sharing these stories, Phyllis, I just find it so fascinating. I feel just lately I’ve been really enthralled with the South, but then we talk about snakes and I’m happy where I live now. It’s really nice to learn about. One of those plants—I’m so excited you’re going to talk about wild ginseng because, wow, what a plant! It’s just such an amazing plant in its own right, and then globally, how it’s become such a huge plant as well. 

Phyllis Light:

Yes. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Anyway, I’m excited to dive into wild ginseng and hear your stories about that plant. 

Phyllis Light:

Well, you know, it was the primary plant that we foraged when I was growing up because it was the one worth the most money. Bottom line, and it still is. Interestingly, there were other plants like pinkroot, which almost got harvested to oblivion, but it has made its way back through conservation and people just not harvesting anymore. The herb industry going, “We don’t need that much Spigelia anymore,” but there were other plants besides American ginseng, but that was the one worth the most money. It’s really kind of interesting to think about ginseng as an industry because that’s kind of where I want to start there; because without ginseng as an industry, there would have been no Light family going to forage.

My family was so well-known as wildcrafters and foragers that there’s actually a road down the mountain, which is the old road down the mountain that I talk about in my book that we used to park at and go foraging down the side of this mountain, that when they renamed all these roads and streets in the county for the 9-11, it got named after my family, so it’s now called the “Light Gap Road.” The family was just known as wildcrafters and foragers. Everybody was. I’ve even gone to yard sales in the community and some little old somebody, little man or little woman would say, “Who are you?” and I’ll say my name, and they would say, “Oh, did you know so and so Light? They used to hunt ginseng on our property.” So, that’s—we’re just that well-known, but without an industry, we would not have been foraging. There is no American market. I want to bring that out—which I think is a shame. I’ve talked about this at several conferences. I was a keynote at the international ginseng conference once. I’m like, “Why have we stopped using American ginseng? Why? Why have we stopped using American ginseng?” I realize we’ve got almost two generations of herbalists that really don’t know how to use American ginseng. It’s never been taught because the marketing concept is that it’s an endangered plant. As herbalists, we should not use American ginseng. That’s not true. Totally. That’s really not true, totally. In 2023, we exported 127,587,000 lbs of ginseng roots to Hong Kong.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wow!

Phyllis Light:

Yeah.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I can’t even imagine, like I cannot imagine that. 

Phyllis Light:

Right. Now, I’m going to say the majority of that was wild—not wild or wild-grown. The majority of that was grown under shade, but a great percentage of that was wild or wild-simulated, and depending on your state, like in the state of Alabama, wild-simulated is treated as wild, so you have to follow the guidelines. You put out the seed. You leave it alone, it’s now wild. You do nothing to it. It’s wild. It’s treated the same. You have to follow the same guidelines as gathering wild. There had been this huge industry for American ginseng being shipped out because they don’t want us to use it. They prefer making the money by shipping it out. This is a new concept to some people to think about that we don’t use it. It’s our herb. We’ve forgotten how to use it, but, hey, let’s send it to China instead—its market. The first—when China opened to trade in the 1700s, I think it was 1734, the first trade with China after they opened their door was 30 metric tons of ginseng. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wow.

Phyllis Light:

Yeah. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

They know what they love. 

Phyllis Light:

Yeah. Well, they had been using it for—2,000 years of written documentation of them using ginseng in China, and they’re like, “Oh, my God! Here’s some other ginseng! Whoa!” 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I realize they’re two very different plants, Phyllis, but when you’re talking about all that we ship over there, I’m wondering how much do we ship the Panax ginseng over here and how much [crosstalk]

Phyllis Light:

Not near, not anything close. Not anything close. The Panax ginseng that does come over here is farm-grown. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Okay.

Phyllis Light:

Because there’s basically no wild left. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Nothing. 

Phyllis Light:

Right. Of course, China has now figured out how to grow American ginseng in Northern China, so they’re trying to kind of move around the market that way also. If we think that it’s only our plant now, we are totally wrong. Other countries are beginning to grow it. There is a misnomer that people think that the only way American ginseng reproduces is by seed. No. You can grow it by dividing the root. If they get a viable root, it can grow. It has been documented that they’re growing it in Russia and they’re growing it in China. They’re trying to grow it in Korea, which is, actually, when we think of Chinese ginseng, it’s actually Korean ginseng, so Korea—what’s now Northern China, used to be Manchuria, is the home of Korean ginseng, which sometimes is called Chinese, but is actually Korean. There has been this trade since the 1700s of sending American ginseng to Asia. One of the interesting things that came up when I was teaching at this ginseng conference, which there was a huge number of Asian ginseng specialists or buyers in the audience, is how they use American ginseng differently in Asia versus how we use it here. If we think about the global market, supplement market, the global herbal market—let’s call it the “global herbal market”—just ginseng sales make up, depending on the year, one fifth to one-fourth of the sales, globally. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wow! Wow, I did not know that!

Phyllis Light:

Yes. So, there was this kind of concept for most Americans, particularly, American herbalists, that, “Here’s this plant. We’re trying to conserve it. We’re not going to use it. We don’t know anything about it,” but hey! Guess what they’re doing with it in Asia? They’re putting it in their yogurt, seriously. That’s what they do with their shade-grown. It goes in their food. It goes in their yogurt. It goes in tea. Almost all packaged, over-the-counter medicine in Asia has a little ginseng in it. That’s what they do with it—the wild, wild-grown. That’s premium. If you happen to be a digger, you wouldn’t—if there’s any diggers out there, because this is what we call people who go ginseng-hunting. We used to call ourselves “hunters” because we’re going to go hunting, but now we call ourselves “diggers.” Just on Facebook, I’m on I think four different digger sites that we share information, how much you get this year, versus what are the tariffs doing to the price of the sang, how we dig it, what’s ethical to dig, what’s not ethical, etc., etc., etc. The tariffs have made a huge dent, and what you can sell the sang for that you dig, versus what it was like pre-COVID, before the first tariffs—before Trump’s first tariffs. The first time he was in office, there were tariffs, and ginseng hunters and diggers took a big hit, and this has gotten even worse. Right now, for a green pound of ginseng—and by “green,” you’ve dug it, it’s fresh. It’s not dried, so it’s called green. It’s about $430 a pound, but if you dry it, you’re looking at about $1,500 a pound for dried ginseng. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Whoa! Whoa! 

Phyllis Light:

And it’s all going over there. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wow! 

Phyllis Light:

Yeah. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

So, I mean, at that price how can we use it, Phyllis? 

Phyllis Light:

You know a lot of ginseng is not used—because it’s graded, and they want the pretty looking stuff with the little arm on it. There’s a lot of too-small plants, nubbin’ plants, too-small roots, a little nubby root that aren’t used, can’t be shipped out. They do kind of end up in the market, but at that price is that—that’s a lot of ginseng, 1,500 dried pounds—I mean, $1,500 for a dried pound—there’s a lot of roots in that. It’s not beyond our use at all—at all. It’s way cheaper than rose essential oil. How many rose petals do you grow to make that? It’s way cheaper than a lot of other herbs, but it’s not—and if we developed the market here, we could actually shift that. It would give our diggers a home market, and we wouldn’t be at the—wouldn’t have the constraints of international trade or tariffs. We would have a home market. Having a home market would actually make the price come down. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Interesting. 

Phyllis Light:

As opposed to the tariffs.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Hey, friends. It’s Rosalee. If you’ve been nourished by this podcast, if it has helped you feel more connected to the plants or more grounded in your own herbal path, then I’d love to invite you to join the Herbs with Rosalee Podcast Circle. This special membership helps make the podcast possible. It supports everything we do behind the scenes, and it gives you a chance to go even deeper with the content that you love. Inside the circle, you’ll get exclusive herbal resources, live classes each season with some of my favorite herbal teachers, and a private space to connect with fellow plant lovers. It’s where the heart of our herbal community continues to grow. To learn more and join us, visit HerbalPodcastCircle.com. Your support means the world and it helps this podcast continue to bloom.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I could see too—I can hear in your voice the—it’s like we’re just shipping all of this plant that’s from the lands that we live on over there and many herbalists aren’t using it. I would agree. I feel like I’ve always been told, “If you use American ginseng: very judiciously, very cautiously because it’s endangered,” that is repeated over and over again.

Phyllis Light:

It is, but we’re sending it over there.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah, by the tons. 

Phyllis Light:

Yep, yep. By the millions of pounds, right? 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah, it’s amazing. I’m curious to talk about the gifts of American ginseng and how we might work with it. I have a thousand questions, so I think I’ll just let you dive in and see where it takes us. 

Phyllis Light:

I grew up eating American ginseng. My dad was feeding me ginseng by the time—I don’t know—I was four or five, so I’ve always had ginseng in my life. The traditional way to eat it, to take it, was just to eat or nibble on the root and kind of gnaw on it. It’s really woody. First, the bitter hits your mouth, and then the sweet just seconds apart from each other, or to make it into a decoction and then drink the tea. But my dad considered that a waste because you have to put more in there to boil it. Just chew it. Just chew this tiny, tiny bit. That’s all you need. That’s how I grew up. We always had ginseng. We actually had the kitchen drawer where the matches, the rubber bands, and everything—we had little bits of ginseng all in that drawer. After my dad died, I got—I went through the drawer, I said to my mom, “Do you want this ginseng?” She goes, “No. I’m just going to throw it away,” because my mom didn’t do herbs. I still have the little bit of nubbins left from that, and so some of this little nubbin ginseng—because you couldn’t sell it—is like 50 years old. It’s been dried maybe longer than—I don’t even know how long my dad had it in the drawer, but it doesn’t matter. I take a little bite and it’s still bitter. It’s still full-fledged bitter with a hint of sweetness behind it. Even dried and aged, it hasn’t lost its potency. How many herbs can you say that about? That 50 years later, this dried root still has potency? That’s a huge thing right there.

It was considered a panacea for whatever ailed you. There was not a thing that ginseng couldn’t be used for. Period. You just had to know when to use it, how long to use it, and what strength to use it at, so that’s what my family did. Because ginseng was kind of the specialty within the family, so that’s how I was taught: A little bit for this, more for that. It just depended on the situation. There really isn’t a system in the body that American ginseng doesn’t impact in some way, absolutely. I know we talk about it herbally as an adaptogen. It’s been researched as an adaptogen, which we are assuming there is HPA, Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal axis influence going on, but it impacts the thyroid. It impacts the reproductive system. It impacts the cardiovascular system. It impacts the blood sugar uptake, insulin. There’s not a system—it impacts digestion.

One time, I was at a conference—AHG conference. It was in—I want to say Santa Cruz, somewhere out west, and I had some really bad Mexican food. I don’t even—I don’t even know if anybody can sympathize with that, but I am in the hotel room, walking around going, “Ugh.” It would be good if I could throw up because it’s just sitting on my stomach. It’s not moving. I drank a Coke, I’m trying to burp. I’m limited, but I always carry ginseng with me when I travel. I always carry a little and I was like, “All I’ve got is some ginseng. How much ginseng do I need to eat to tell my gallbladder to move this stuff on out?” because my gallbladder was tap dancing, let me tell you, after that bad, greasy Mexican food. I just sat down and started chewing on the root, and literally, that bitter I chewed and I chewed, and within five minutes, I literally felt my gallbladder go, “Hahh!” The bile moved, my stomach emptied, and within about 20 minutes, I’m also going to poop. Let’s just be—we’re herbalists- 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

We’re herbalists. 

Phyllis Light:

We understand, right? It just pushed it all the way through. It was wonderful and amazing. I was like, “Thank goodness.” I was so glad I brought some ginseng with me. There’s literally not a system it doesn’t affect. I can’t think of one. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

If someone had asked, if someone had bet me like, “I bet you 20 bucks that American ginseng would be great for bad Mexican food that’s sitting in your stomach and not moving,” I’d be out 20 bucks. I mean, I won’t now because now I know, but that is very surprising to me. 

Phyllis Light:

Well, it’s bitter. It’s going to move bile. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

It makes sense. 

Phyllis Light:

Right? You just have to know how much. It was traditionally used as a digestive aid in the South, and for constipation. That’s not the top use for it, but it certainly is one of the uses for it, absolutely. I grew up, “Constipated? Have some ginseng.” 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Interesting. When you work with it today, Phyllis, do you have specific indications? Or can you tell a story about someone you recently recommended it to? 

Phyllis Light:

Okay, so, my more current, maybe modern, less connected to traditional use—that’s what I mean by modern—is for people who are so stressed, they can’t sleep. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Ooh, interesting. 

Phyllis Light:

Yeah, and so, I know a lot of herbalists, and occasionally, I do tea. I think skullcap or passionflower for that. You’re so tired. You can’t sleep. You got the thoughts going round and round your head, but from kind of like the indication is you’re too tired to sleep. You don’t have enough energy to go to sleep. Your energy is caught—your energy is being diverted. You don’t have enough energy to sleep. I don’t even know how to explain it better than that, but if you have a question about that concept, let me know.

But I think we’ve all experienced being so tired that we’ve laid down to go to sleep and sleep is not coming, and we toss and turn all night. Thoughts, whatever. That—American ginseng is amazing for that. People can get into that kind of cortisol situation that happens with stress, that they get where they wake up and they’re tired. You’re too—either you don’t feel refreshed even—finally, they go to sleep but it’s not refreshing sleep. It has not invigorated them. It wasn’t restful. Just a little bit of American ginseng everyday for about ten days, sleeping. Sleeping because now you have the energy to sleep. Your mind is relaxed. Your body is relaxed that you have energy to sleep. It is amazing how that works. It’s one of my favorite uses these days. I prefer it over skullcap. I prefer it over passionflower for that. Umm, passionflower? It depends—and again, it’s going to depend on access to herbs. Not everybody has access to good quality, ethically wildcrafted American ginseng tincture, for example. 

I do think tincture works great even though traditionally, it would be water-soluble. If you can get an ethically wildcrafted tincture, three drops, and people go, “That’s not enough. How am I going to get to sleep with three drops?” You’re not trying to go to sleep. You’re trying to elevate your energy to the point where you can rest and repair, and eliminate and restore during the night. That takes energy to do that. That is an energy-driven process. You’re trying to get your energy level to the point where you can do that, where you can restore while you sleep. You’re not trying to go to sleep. If you see the difference. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah. The way you describe reminds me a little bit of ashwagandha. Do you work with ashwagandha? Is that something you can compare?

Phyllis Light:

A little bit. I just like ginseng better than ashwagandha.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Okay. 

Phyllis Light:

I’ve tried them both and I don’t think ginseng kind of trips up the thyroid the same way the ashwagandha does, but they do share some other properties. If you have good quality in the field, the passionflower—which is a whole different kettle of fish—I was taught passionflower has to be absolutely tinctured fresh or you’ve lost half of it because there is an aromatic property to fresh passionflower that you don’t get when it’s dried. It’s gone when you dry it. But if you tincture it fresh, it’s there and then it’s like four drops of ginseng is like—sorry, four drops of passionflower is like somebody went (makes sound) to the middle of your forehead and you’re out. It’s a whole different herb-

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Interesting.

Phyllis Light:

When it’s tinctured that way. When it’s processed that way, and its uses then widen. Passionflower’s uses widen. So sometimes I do passionflower because that’s why I gather and process my passionflower as fresh, but generally, for this stressed out world we’re living in, it’s going to be American ginseng. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Would you ever work with the two of them together – the ginseng and the passionflower?

Phyllis Light:

I have.  

Rosalee de la Forêt:

It seems like they might be complimentary in some way. 

Phyllis Light:

They are complimentary, but before I kind of knock somebody out with passionflower, I like to understand or see or get feedback that their energy level is beginning to come up a little bit; that they can feel it in the daytime. Too much American ginseng and it’s—what’s the word I’m looking for? It’s like the adrenals have been punched and forced to do something. You don’t want that. That’s I think one of the issues I have with how some adaptogens are used and how much the doses of them that’s being used. It does this to the adrenals. It forces them to do something in a 24-hour period that they’re not really set up to do. Over time, this is going to be more depleting. Now, you’re exhausting your adrenals because you’re forcing them. That little bit of American ginseng, like my dad said, just a little bite, but I go three drops of good quality tincture. It nudges. There’s a little nudge. It helps restore the adrenals instead of forcing them-- restoration of the adrenals. Just a little nudging, so it takes ten days to two weeks. I like to see the little “nudging” happen before I go, “Okay, now, let’s add something else in,” so that I know it’s working. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thank you for that explanation. You’ve talked about American ginseng as a tincture, as a tea, as chewing on the roots, and you’re also sharing this recipe with us for ginseng honey. I wonder if you’d speak to that a bit for us.

Phyllis Light:

Ginseng honey is—I didn’t talk about ginseng alcohol, which is really common in other parts of the world. We’ll start with ginseng alcohol, which in Asia is a real common way to do your ginseng. It takes a year. You’re using rice wine of some kind, whether you’re using a sake or you’re—some other distilled rice. I do like rice because it’s kind of neutral, and then you just cut up some roots or have one big root, just plop it in the alcohol, put it away there a year. Now, celebration time a year later. I try to keep some of that going. When friends come over, “Hey, let’s have a little ginseng. The longer it sits, actually, the more it’s worth. In the Appalachians, people did—we did that. That was common here. I know I talked about how they do it in Asia, but it was an Appalachia thing too, but we did it in corn liquor—in moonshine, in corn liquor. You would have a quart of corn liquor and then you would put the ginseng in it, and then you just put it back. You just let it do its thing for a year, two years. Thirty years, that was worth some money. The longer it sits, the more you could sell it for, and the more potent it was. I didn’t give a recipe for that because, basically, if you know how to make a tincture, that’s all you’re doing. You just—tradition in Appalachia was moonshine. 

But the honey was also a tradition and it was useful for little kids, in particular. To get them used to the taste of it or to help little kids disguise the taste of it, but it’s also nice. You can either use a whole root or you can cut a root up, which is probably the better way to do it so you got more surface area and it doesn’t have to sit as long to what we call “cure-out,” but what herbally we’d call “infuse.” Great, right? 

First, you have your honey, and you—whatever jar you’ve got it in. I use—I keep mine in glass. Then you chop your ginseng up. You put it in there, put a lid on it, and you put it in a pan of water. The water is only like that much. You don’t want it to go too high up on the jar because the jar will float. If you’ve ever done honey in a jar, at some point, it floats, so you only need about this much water, and the heat is almost as low as you can get it. This is so that the honey liquefies. Now, if you’re using raw honey and you want to keep the rawness, you need to keep it below 95°F, or at least below 100°F, but 95°F I think is. If you’re not using raw honey, well then it don’t matter. The honey is not going to liquefy well if the heat is up too tight—up too high. When I do anything with honey, including ginseng, the heat is as low as I can get it. It might take an hour. It might take an hour and a half or two hours, but the honey is now like water. It’s as liquid as water, flows as well as water, and the ginseng has started to infuse. If the honey gets foam on it, you’ve lost it. The heat’s been too high, you’ve lost it, so you don’t want it to foam. 

After it gets to this kind of wateriness, then you can move it to a dehydrator or you can leave it where it’s at. You just want to make sure you don’t go over 95°F and it depends on what you have. I don’t have a good dehydrator that I can set the temperature on, so I leave it where it’s at for another two or three hours, and make sure if water is evaporating I add some, but truthfully, at that low of a heat, water is not really evaporating. You’re not getting much evaporation at all, but you can move it to a dehydrator and make sure it’s 95°F, leave it for about six hours, and it continues to cure-out or infuse, and then after—I don’t know—six, ten hours, whatever you want to do. Six, minimally; ten might be a little better, then just put it on the counter and let it continue to cure, or stick it back in your cupboard, let it continue to cure out. You’ve had enough heat, everything has softened up enough, and then strain it out when you feel like, “Oh, it’s done.” Go ahead and strain it out, get the ginseng out. Oh, by the way, this is for dried ginseng. If it was fresh ginseng, it would be a different way. We would need to dry it a little bit because you don’t want that moisture. It won’t cure the same way, so dried ginseng. Strain it out and you have ginseng honey. Or if you’re lazy like me, you just leave it in there. Don’t strain it until you absolutely have to and it’s the bottom of the honey, and then you reheat the whole thing again because it has become honey again. It has become—the viscosity has changed, and then you have to reheat it, but hey, I get busy. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

You mentioned this is—yeah, I hear you. I have a couple of projects like that in my kitchen as well. You mentioned this is great for kids or I imagine anybody who loves honey. In what ways do you like to use this? For what in particular? 

Phyllis Light:

Well, it makes a nice little—what is the word I’m looking for? Tonic? Because you’re not using a whole lot of ginseng, and maybe that’s something I need to say here. You only—if you have, let’s say, a pint of honey, ginseng is so strong that you’re only using a few little pieces. If you had a root, let’s say this long, you’re only using about that much. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Oh, wow. Okay. 

Phyllis Light:

That’s how strong it is. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Just for people listening, that’s like an inch long. 

Phyllis Light:

Yeah, it’s like an inch-long is all you’re using, and then you’re cutting that up so you got more surface area. It’s only a tiny bit of root, but you will taste it. You know there’s ginseng in there. The honey taste has been subjugated now by the ginseng taste, but it makes a nice little tonic for whatever ails you. It kind of boosts your immune system, nice little tonic going into winter. My dad would put it on a butter biscuit. He’d say, “I’m a little tired today,” at breakfast he’d put a little on a butter biscuit and that’s what he ate. We also did it—I talked about honey, but we also did it in sorghum. I don’t know if anybody is familiar with sorghum syrup, which is cheap and really common in the South at a certain time period. We made ourselves. My dad made our sorghum syrup himself. The people in the community would try to come together, two or three men and make a syrup. Everybody got to take some home for their family, and then whoever grew the sorghum got the rest and they sold it. We always had sorghum and it was always handmade and fresh. We use that a lot like honey, but it has a really strong taste as compared to honey. Not everybody likes sorghum syrup, but I grew up eating it, I like it. It often got used the same way that honey did, so sometimes things got infused in sorghum. Things got sweetened with sorghum, etc., but it actually tastes a little bit—it tastes better in honey. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Okay. Thank you so much for sharing that recipe with us. Listeners can download that beautifully illustrated recipe above this transcript. Thanks again for sharing that with us. 

Phyllis Light:

You’re welcome. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Is there anything else you’d like to share about ginseng before we move on, Phyllis? 

Phyllis Light:

Just a quick rundown of some of the things that it can do, how about that? 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

It sounds good. 

Phyllis Light:

It helps improve thinking and cognitive ability. It helps improve memory. There are some studies out there right now of, “Can this help with Alzheimer’s?” or “Can it help prevent Alzheimer’s?” There are studies that show that ginseng increase—or improve impotence in men. It’s my #1 go-to for guys of a certain age that are having problems. I say give three drops a day, two weeks to three weeks, and I’ve never seen it fail, truly. It does boost the immune system. It increases white cell count. There are studies out there that show that. Of course, it was always a traditional use, but there are interestingly—there’s also studies that show that it helps make antibiotics work better. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Oh, wow. 

Phyllis Light:

If you’re doing ginseng with an antibiotic, the infection heals faster. The antibiotic works better. It increases endurance. It increases energy. It helps increase muscle mass. If you’re working out, a little ginseng can help you build muscle, then increase muscle strength. There was a time period in the Olympics where particularly, Russian athletes were using ginseng to help increase their endurance. The mitochondria get more oxygen if you’re doing American ginseng. It enhances fertility, male and female. It can help balance wavering monthly cycles that are not stable or steady. It can help bring those closer to normality, depending, of course, on what the issue is. I have used it for PCOS, sometimes it’s super helpful. Sometimes a little helpful, but it always helped a tiny bit. Even that is one of the more modern things that I’m using ginseng for is PCOS. It helps enhance all neurotransmitter activity, and that’s what some studies have shown where we would have just said back in the day, “It helps with your mood. It makes you feel better. It gives you energy. It helps you with your mood.” Now, we say “enhances mitochondrial activity and improves neurotransmitter activity.” [crosstalk]

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I like both—both those kinds of things, so that was helpful. Wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing that rundown with us too, Phyllis. I feel both excited to work with this plant more, and also, again, I also approach this like, “Oh, it’s endangered.” I guess that there is some concern there, right? We do want to be looking for ethically wildcrafted or perhaps shade grown. 

Phyllis Light:

Yes, yes. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

It’s not like we’re getting a permission slip to use as much as we want wherever it comes from. 

Phyllis Light:

To legally dig sang, you have to follow certain guidelines. One of the issues that’s going on right now is people are illegally digging sang, and they don’t have their license. In the State of Alabama and all—there are 34 states where American ginseng grows. Thirty-four states. It grows from the Gulf of Mexico. For some reason, people think North Carolina and Wisconsin are the only two states it grows in. No. It grows—it is home 34 states. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I only think of it growing in Alabama because of you, Phyllis. 

Phyllis Light:

Thank you. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I am also misinformed, but-

Phyllis Light:

Thank you. I’ve had ginseng from Mississippi, from the Gulf Coast of Alabama. I’ve had ginseng from West Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas. All places in between—Wisconsin—I haven’t had wild from Wisconsin, but it grows from the Gulf Coast, all the way up into Canada. Thirty-four states American ginseng calls home, but only 19 states gather ginseng in the wild. To do that legally, you have to have a ginseng license to do that. Then, you can only sell the ginseng you’ve gathered from the wild to somebody with a license to collect it, and then they sell it someplace else. There are—there is a black market of people who are not ethically wildcrafting, because ethically, you have to wait till the seed forms. You are supposed to plant the seed of the ginseng plant. As a digger, you’re supposed to plant that seed, but now we have diggers who are just going, “It’s July. It’s not even ginseng season yet, there’s no seed, but I’m going to dig this.” They may or may not have a license, but there are then the jobbers or the marketers who are buying it even though they are not buying it legally. That’s what we have to crack down on, I think is, “Are you ethically wildcrafting?” A lot of poor people, like in West Virginia, are like, “No, but it pays my light bill. It pays my electric bill. What am I going to do instead?” So, that is a concern, and that is a concern that we need to address. 

If you’re buying ethically-sourced wild American ginseng, either make sure that the person selling it dug it on their own land, for which you don’t need a license. It’s your land. You can grow what you want on it. Do what you want with it. You don’t have to have a license to dig it. You don’t have to have a license to make a home product. You have to have a license if you’re going to sell it, and then it’s going to be sold out of country. So, check. Ask questions. Make sure that either the person grew it themself, it was wild on their land or they’re wild-growing it themself. Or make sure they bought it from someone who ethically wildcrafted and replanted the seed. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

A pretty good germination rate on those seeds? Just curious. 

Phyllis Light:

Yes, but they’re hard to track because they don’t all come up the same year. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Interesting. 

Phyllis Light:

Ginseng seed can stay in the ground two, three, four years before it comes up. In a bad year, like with drought or insects or something happening in nature, a ginseng plant, a ginseng root can lose its top, can lose its leaves and stems, and stay in the ground three, four, five years, before it comes back again. It makes it a little hard to track both—it makes it hard to track populations. How many ginseng plants are resting? Because that is kind of a unique thing. Store a lot of energy. The environment is not good, let’s rest until the environment is good again. That should tell you as a doctrine of signature something about its use, right?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Absolutely. 

Phyllis Light:

The seed can do the same thing. It’s kind of hard to track. You can plant ginseng seeds and you might go out the next year and go, “I’ve only got six plants,” then go five years later and see how many plants you got. I know a person who did that because people in the area call me and say, “Hey, I want to grow some wild ginseng,” and I’m like, “Okay.” I know this one guy had woods, mixed hardwoods. He got on his four-wheeler, bought a bunch of ginseng seeds, and he went out and he did this off his four-wheeler. He went back the next year to check. He called me and said, “I hardly have any ginseng seeds at all.” I explained to him they may not all come up. I said, “Wait. Go back two, three years.” He called me, actually, five years later, and he said, “Where do I sell all this ginseng to?” It was like super germination rate. He dug pounds and pounds and pounds and pounds of ginseng, but it took a while for it to come up. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Interesting. Hearing you talk about these little slivers of this and that, Phyllis, just makes me realize there’s so much to know about this plant. 

Phyllis Light:

There really is. Something my family did because we didn’t exactly wild-simulate, but we “forest farmed” might be a way to put it, closer to a Native American fashion. We always planted the seed—that was a given. We always planted one or two. We always dug up one or two roots and then cut off, snapped off the little arm, planted that, cut up the root, planted three or four of those, and then make sure we left some, and then we harvested some. These were managed in that way, but they were left to grow as they were. There was no interference; nothing added to the soil, no augmentation of the soil. We didn’t weed it. Deer still came along and ate it the way they wanted to. Otherwise, it was wild. But there was a succession, so you keep planting because it takes five to seven years for a plant to get old enough to sell in the market. Now, the older the plant, the more it’s worth, absolutely, but five to seven years gets you in the market, so kind of like the way that we forest farmed, there was always more ginseng plants coming along. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

What you did one year wasn’t necessarily for the next year. It was a very long-term thinking. 

Phyllis Light:

You have to think long term with ginseng. Ginseng farmers, wild farm simulated or even grown in shade, you have to think long term. The same with fairy wand—what’s that? Wild unicorn, five to seven years—this is a long-term investment. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah. Thank you for sharing so much wisdom about American ginseng with us. I’m excited to find a good source and to work with it. I think—I strength-train so I’m curious just to try three drops a day and see how that goes. 

Phyllis Light:

Awesome! Thank you.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thank you so much! I’d love to hear what projects you have going on, Phyllis. Do you—I’m loving Southern Folk Medicine so much again. This is, I think, the third time that I’ve gone through it. I’m wondering do you have any other books coming down the corridor?

Phyllis Light:

Thank you! I’m working on a second volume to Southern Folk Medicine where I’m going into some of the things I touched on a little bit deeper, like the high blood, low blood, thick blood, thin blood, where I just had a few sentences about them in my book. I’m going deeper into that, so I’m working on that and more stories of Southern Folk Medicine. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Lovely. 

Phyllis Light:

I’m working on that. Yeah, I have a new project also I’m working on some kind of—you know you get one project going—you work on this one and then you go, “I’m getting tired,” then you go and work on this one, and then you go back and work on this. The other one I’m working on is—I don’t even know how to—give me a second how to explain it. In my investigations over the years of ginsengs around the world, I stumbled upon this really interesting fact, but it was something I already knew. It was something now I’m investigating.

My dad was in the Korean war. He got shipped to Korea. He hated fighting, but he loved Korea because, hey, they’re in the mountains. He goes, “Oh, my God! This is Alabama and there is ginseng! Is that ginseng?” That was my dad. He felt kind of home in the wildness of Korea during the war. When I was born, I actually got a Korean middle name that probably Southerners are not pronouncing Korean at all, but that was—but my dad liked it that much because he was like, “It’s just like home.” It’s just like where we live. He felt at ease on the land. That was always in the back of my mind and I’ve always had this little energetic connection to Korea from the stories my dad told me. My dad was a paratrooper, by the way, too—jumping out of planes into a forest area. He loved it because it was just like—he said he looked down and it was just like home. It’s like being on a bluff.

So, anyway, I’ve always had this little connection. Over the years, I’ve compiled little bits and hear of herbs, and ultimately, we share—the South, only the Southern Appalachians—only this little bit of Southern Appalachia where I live—we share 45% of our botany with Korea. Isn’t that wild? 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wow. That is wild. 

Phyllis Light:

Isn’t it wild? And so that’s why there’s American ginseng and Korean ginseng. They’re not the same species, obviously, because somebody gave them different names. Those are just names that were given based on location, etc., etc. I’ve started down this rabbit hole of not just the sangs, but all these other plants. They have—we have redbud. They have redbud. I mean, I could go through a list of native herbs here where I live that are the native herbs in Korea, and that little area of what is now Northern China. I’m down the rabbit hole on that, kind of comparing how did they traditionally use ginseng in Korea? Not the modern marketing, multimillion dollar industry it is in Korea, but what was the tradition in Korea of—what was the tradition of using redbud? I know how I was taught to use redbud as medicine. I know how I was taught to use these wild skullcaps. All these wild plants I’m kind of like comparing—not comparing species. Yeah, it’s interesting, but I’m not—don’t really care. Don’t tell a botanist I said that. I’m more interested in the folk uses. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Just between you and me. 

Phyllis Light:

Between me and you. I want to know the folk uses and how they developed, and kind of this comparison and contrast based on culture. Something interesting I found out in this process that when there was the super continent Appalachia and Korea were the same. They were the same land mass and that’s why we share more than 45% of the same botany. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I have read about that before and found it fascinating. I love that your dad didn’t need some scholarly-filled, report-filled study done. He just landed there and was just like, “Yep. I know these plants.” 

Phyllis Light:

Yeah, that’s what he did. He went, “I know these plants.” He started gathering them and using them and—if it wasn’t—if it hadn’t had been for war, he would have had a really good time. There were some aspects he was having a really good time, and then there was the fighting that wasn’t fun, but the other part was. Yep, he just landed and went, “Wow! I know this.” 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I feel like I need to ask what does the D stand for Phyllis D. Light. 

Phyllis Light:

Dewona. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Dewona, and what is—is there a meaning with that or is it a name or-

Phyllis Light:

It is probably mispronounced. It could—I have investigated it. Dewon is what the Southern is, and Dewona is the Korean. It means the “center of the cosmos.” 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wow! 

Phyllis Light:

Yeah. My dad did not know this. It’s something—or the center of the world or the center of something. You’re just the center. My dad did not know this, obviously. He just liked it. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

What a beautiful cosmological name you have with the last name of Light, as well. It’s very beautiful. 

Phyllis Light:

Thank you. Thank you. Once I started investigating the shared botany, I’ve actually started using my middle name some. I was like, somebody might like it. Somebody might go, “Okay. That’s kind of cool.” 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Absolutely. 

Phyllis Light:

Yeah. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Well, these are new projects I’m very excited for, Phyllis, so I’m looking forward to hearing about them.

Phyllis Light:

Thank you! I’m working on it. I’m working on it. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Before I let you go, I have one last question for you. 

Phyllis Light:

Okay. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

And that question is, what do you wish you had known when you were just starting out? Which I don’t even know if you could remember when you were just starting out, but what’s some advice you would give to a young herbalist, essentially? 

Phyllis Light:

Understand how the body works. I came in to realize I needed to know more about anatomy and physiology, and how the body works. My grandmother did fine with not knowing. She didn’t know where your liver was. Truly, she did not know where your liver was. It was just all your stomach as far as she was concerned—somewhere there was your liver. “Pancreas? What is that?” But you know times have changed. I think anatomy and physiology, understanding—which helps you understand a little bit better how to select herbs; understand that patterns of dysfunction—my grandmother went for patterns of dysfunction—are multilayered. The pattern of dysfunction you’re working on may not be the root pattern at all, particularly when you’re working the endocrine system. There are so many—just the thyroid, there are so many body systems with symptoms that the thyroid affects that if you get the thyroid back in balance, all the symptoms go away; but if you’re just looking at patterns of dysfunction, you’re peeling the layers—like hundreds of layers off an onion. So, understanding more how the body works, particularly neurotransmitters and hormones, helps you cut to the chase a little bit. That’s one thing I would say. Understand that as patterns of—I still look at patterns of dysfunction, but I’m looking at the patterns of dysfunction now in relation to the body system and herbs, where my grandmother looked at patterns of dysfunction only in relation to herbs. She helped a zillion people, don’t get me wrong. I still use it, but it’s just way more efficient to have that deeper understanding of how the body works.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Do you spend time with labs? Do you get labs from your clients? 

Phyllis Light:

I do. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

It’s part of it? 

Phyllis Light:

Yep. Yeah, I do. I look at labs. I worked in a doctor’s office once. In my early years, I worked in a mental health center. I was a physician’s assistant in a mental health center, and so I had that training. Back in that time period, the doctor trained you. You did not have to have a degree to do it, so the doctor signed off on everything you did. The doctor who trained me was Dr. Mary Trainor who is deceased now, but it was the local mental health center or the county mental health center. I had some really good training there that got me thinking about, “Wait. This is a whole other level that my grandmother never had to deal with. My dad never had to deal with this.” It’s like mental health. Now, we’re talking about neurotransmitters and what are those. You just build. No little bit of knowledge isn’t useful. Every single, tiny, little bit of experience and knowledge that you get as an herbalist, you’re going to use some day. It will be there. You’ll be able to pull it out of the memory vault when you need it, absolutely. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Especially with repetition. I feel like I could listen to this episode a couple of times. I just relistened to your sumac episode and was reminded of some things I had already forgotten from that episode. I’m a big fan of repetition, mainly, because I need it myself. 

Phyllis Light:

Me too, me too. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thank you again so much for being here, Phyllis, for talking about wild ginseng. I feel like my mind has been blown yet again by your teachings, so I appreciate that. 

Phyllis Light:

Thank you. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Really looking forward to seeing you soon. I get to see you in person soon at International Herb Symposium.

Phyllis Light:

Yes, yes!

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Looking forward to your projects as well, so thank you, thank you, thank you.

Phyllis Light:

Alrighty. Thank you for having me and I’ll talk to you later. Alright. Bye-bye. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thanks so much for listening. You can download your illustrated recipe card from today’s episode above this transcript. And if you’re not already subscribed, I’d love to have you as part of this herbal community so I can deliver even more herbal goodies your way.

This podcast is made possible in part by our awesome students. This week’s Student Spotlight is on Nancy Jensen in West Virginia. Nancy is on the certificate path in Rooted Medicine Circle, and really brings a deep sense of reciprocity and creativity to her herbal journey. Her reflections often weave together plants and animals and place, from noticing butterfly weeds spreading across her meadow, to greeting wild plants during a community roadside cleanup. She also dives into medicine making with great enthusiasm experimenting with teas, and syrups, and vinegars, tinctures, and hydrosols. Nancy shared, “I’m having an expansive feeling that grows with each new medicine we make together, and that I now feel the courage to take up on my own.” Her words beautifully captured the heart of Rooted Medicine Circle. 

To honor her contributions, Mountain Rose Herbs is sending Nancy a $50 gift certificate to stock up on their incredible selection of organically and sustainably-sourced herbal supplies. Thank you so much, Mountain Rose Herbs, for supporting our amazing students.

And if you’d like to begin or deepen your own path with the plants, you can explore my foundational courses at herbswithrosalee.com. 

Okay, you have made it to the end of the show, which means you get a gold star and this herbal tidbit.

So, before we close, here’s a little herbal tidbit about American ginseng. Did you know the berries are beloved by wild turkeys, songbirds, and even small mammals? In fact, these creatures help disperse the seeds carrying ginseng’s future into the forest. It’s a really sweet reminder that this root’s story isn’t just about people. It’s also about the web of life that depends upon it. 

I’ll see you in the next episode. As always, thanks for joining me.