TOPIC: need help with identification

Hi everyone,
I live on a mountain top in Tennessee. I know ginseng grows here, I have seen mature plants with the red berries on our property, wish I had marked them, but I didn't. From the research I have done so far our land is perfect for ginseng. I have also heard of other people hunting ginseng in our subdivision. I am interested in harvesting the ginseng that is already here and simulating wild grown ginseng in the future. It would be great if I could identify the young plants so I can protect them for the future and I will be learning about growing our own as I go along.
I can't seem to find any good pics of the young plants. Any and all help will be appreciated. I hope y'all don't get sick of my questions. I just found this forum today so I will be reading pasts posts and asking questions.
thanks,JOY

Joy, There are some pics of young seng in the Growing form under topic Spring time.Also good pics throughout several old posts. Some good pics of green hail damaged ginseng by Guy under General seng Q + A topic Lets have more sang pictures. Maybe these will help you find Green seng in the woods.

OK, I saw some beautiful shots of mature plants with the berries, and some golden plants that I assume are fall colors. But I still didn't see any pics of small plants just starting to grow. It's crazy, but I swear I have stuff growing all over the place here that looks like the photos I''ve seen. I know they can't all be ginseng we'd be chasing people out of here all the time if it was. I will keep researching. Our subdivision is like 900 acres and very sparsely populated, with alot of unsold tracts. Also the tracts that are sold are mostly unoccupied. It would be great if all these plants I'm seeing are ginseng! But I can't believe it is. Bear with me while I'm learning.
JOY

Hey joy under spring time in growing ginseng i posted some pics of seng plants just coming up and some pics of one year old seng. Also some others have posted some pics of newly emerging seng i don't know how young of a plant you are looking for but this may help some. Also check out Harding's ginseng farm they have a lot of pics on their. also just check out any websites that sell ginseng seed because all of them have pics of seng. Hope this helps some.

Hillbilly, I did find the pics of the plants you had posted in \"springtime\", at first I couldn't find that topic heading, but I went back and looked again. I know for sure I saw some of the newly emerging ginseng earlier this spring, but of course I had no idea what I was looking at.Seems like all I ever see when I'm doing a websearch is pics of mature plants. Thanks for your help. If it ever stops raining I'm going for a walk to see what I can see.
I need some pics I can carry with me. Can anyone recommend a good guide or book? My digital camera is fried or I would post some pics of what I'm seeing, it would probably be easier, my memory is also fried.
When do the berries come on? I know they age to red, but they start green right? So when can I start looking for that? Also, since the seeds come from the berries wouldn't the plants grow around each other? Like where there's old plants shouldn't there be young plants?
JOY

Joy I am going to try and answer your questions the best i can. The pics i had posted were adult seng but they were just coming up, there was one picture of a one year old plant that only had three leaves they kinda look like a strawberry plant in their first year. Then maybe in the second year they get another prong with five leaflets. A great book for you to get would be Growing @ Marketing Ginseng, Goldenseal@ other Woodland Medicinals by W. Scott Persons and Jeanine M. Davis. You can get it off of Hardings Ginseng farm's website or i believe Amazon .com. It is an excellent book i own a copy myself. It covers everything from ID to growing, diseases, digging, stratifying and just about everything else. Now for when the berries come on I live in eastern Ky and here they start getting ripe(or turning bright red) in about middle of August and usually by the first week in September almost all berries will be ripe. And yes they do start out green. And yes joy usually in most cases if their is a big mature mommy plant they will be little baby seng under or around the mature plant

Hello Joy,

You may want to check the pictures of young ginseng plants on the main page of this web site. You can scroll down to middle of the page and there are 4 pictures of newly emerging ginseng plants.

Hope this helps.

Thanks to both of you for your answers. I am going to order that book that Hillbilly suggested. And I did go back to the home page and check out the pics there. I finally got a few minutes this evening when it wasn't raining and I went out in the woods. So now i do have a couple more questions, I hope I'm not getting on your nerves...
1.Are the stems of the plants woody or fleshy?
2.Are they prickly?
3.On the young plants are the stems red in color?
4.Since the berries are red by the middle of August in KY, shouldn't the plants be blooming by what the middle to the end of June?
I'm sure I will think of 5 more things I wanted to ask as soon as I submit this.
thanks, JOY

Hey Joy lets get one thing straight first by no means am I an expert at ginseng even though i have hunted it all my life and growed it. But i will help you to the best of my knowledge because i just love to talk about ginseng especially to one who is just starting to learn about this wonderful plant. And don't worry about the questions keep them coming and i will answer them to the best of my knowledge. The stems on a ginseng plant are smooth not woody. Like i said they are not prickly they are real smooth. The stems are not red on young plants. To me they have a greenish purple look when they first emerge then a more greenish tent as they get bigger. But that is something i really haven't paid much attention to. I really ain't to sure on the blooming though but you are probably right on the time but now don't get me wrong on the time of the berries being ripe. They start getting ripe in the middle of August that doesn't mean all of them are ripe. But usually by September they are. Hey hoped i helped you some more keep them questions coming i will try and help you as much as i can.

Joy, You might be seeing 5 leaf ivy since you are seeing so much.Ginseng has finer teeth on the leaves than ivy does also look for where the prongs meet in the same spot on the stem. You will get used to spotting seng once you start hunting it and you will find great Joy in doing so,no pun intended.It is a Joy to find wild seng the thrill keeps me going year after year. Have you any interest in Yellow root? it is fun to dig also,grows in big patches