In the late 1800s, rural Appalachians and indigenous people built a multimillion dollar industry out of folk botany, shared forest stewardship and business cunning. Across the region, independent ...

Historian Luke Manget's eureka moment came as he thumbed through the pages of a dusty 1870s business ledger from an old general store in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. The book had not been opened in a ...

For generations, wild ginseng has been an ingredient in medicinal folklore and a deep-rooted tradition in Appalachian culture. Ginseng season kicks off Wednesday ...

This story originally appeared on Undark and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Iris Gao keeps a ginseng root in her office. It’s fixed on black velvet with three other bleached-brown ...

CAMPBELL COUNTY, Tenn — Deep in the woods of Appalachia, the trees grow tall and plants dig their roots deep into the soil. Communities thrive from the work of all their members. Traditions are passed ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Ginseng plant with berries in fall, Whitesville, W.Va. Lyntha Scott Eller/Library of Congress, CC BY-ND Across Appalachia, ...

"GINSENG DIGGERS: A HISTORY OF ROOT AND HERB GATHERING IN APPALACHIA" by Luke Manget (University of Kentucky Press, 304 pages, $28). In the 19th century, large numbers of people living in Southern and ...

Even though George Albright has been digging "sang" in his native West Virginia with a homemade "sanging hoe" since he was 12 years old, he doesn't use ginseng himself. Ken Sherman Tom Carte's harvest ...

Ginseng is a prized root in demand for it's wide use in traditional Chinese medicine. Some of the most valuable ginseng grows wild in Appalachia, but supplies are dwindling. The root ginseng is used ...

This article originally appeared on Undark. Iris Gao keeps a ginseng root in her office. It’s fixed on black velvet with three other bleached-brown specimens, all of them twisty and otherworldly and ...