What do people do with ginseng?
I know that on a more industrial level it’s used in medicines and herbal remedies, but what do individuals who buy it do with it?
Eat it as medicine.
In many Asian style medicine traditions food is medicine and medicine is food.
Curiously,
though American Ginseng is very popular in both northern Asian and now modern Western cultures, it never was a major herb of choice amongst most Native American tribes.
Once it was discovered however it was almost picked to extinction for export.
I imagine it might become more used by NDNs now because American Ginseng has been discovered to be good for a pathology many NDNs acquire while living a modern American lifestyle.
There are commercial growers of American ginseng but the most potent ginseng is said to be that which grows wild.
Where an herb is grown and under what conditions is a big factor for quality.
This holds true for most herbal products except those that have been specially bred for a higher content of some specific chemical constituent.
Southern Marsh Orchid about 100 yards from Bude town centre!
Hey Steve, when I finally do get over there, you’re going to have to show me all of those beautiful flowers, ok?
As always, gorgeous picture! 
Calypso bulbosa - a lady slipper orchid native to the Western US.
I took this picture at Armstrong Redwoods State Park in California while we were there for my parent’s 50th aniversary. A group of us went there and took a walk. They took a different way back and I backtracked the same route. I caught this one out of the corner of my eye. Off and on I have been searching there for this orchid for years. Living in Idaho I may never have the timing right ever again.
I did not have my tripod with me and only my onboard flash. The flash was washing out the image and so I had to take it by hand and long exposure. Now, these orchids are only 6-7 inches tall and this one was about 5. Imagine a person with elbows and knees on the ground, butt sticking WAY up in the air, trying to get a view through the camera (Digital Rebel with standard lens). An older gentleman and two younger boys were walking by and I stood up just then. One of the boys says, “Hey, I thought he was dead!!!”
I finally wound up taking several shots blind by resting the body on the ground and snapping the shot with the timer. This was one of the last ones before my battery finally gave out. I was quite excited when I saw it in the LCD.
It was REALLY tempting to try it harvest that beauty, but it is still there as far as I know.
NOTE: The green foliage is not the foliage of this orchid. That is Redwood Sorrel.
Lovely, just lovely! My favorite colors, too!
I’m confused, though. You said “early” in the title. It’s June. It’s the middle of summer.
Did you take this in February? Or maybe March?
Looks like the spiky purple alien flower I found in Joshua Tree National Park:
http://tinyurl.com/r2usa
Or perhaps I shouldn’t be posting to the forum whilst drinking large goblets of reserve sake.
The Early Purple orchid flowers in April and May, and I took the pic in April. The Southern Marsh orchid flowers in May and June and is just going over now (especially as we’ve had an unusually warm and dry June so far). Here’s a colony of Southern Marsh orchids near my house, unusually not in marshy conditions but on a dry roadside cutting.
Although it started raining today, June was very dry here as well, after the wettest May on record mind you.
Two more here: one growing in Dromore wood, the only surviving old native forest in Clare. The second one of hundreds growing locally on the Clifftops and the meadowland near the ocean. Taken about two weeks ago.
