to the continuing demand for ginseng, have already dug up most of the oldest roots. However, searchers occasionally discover a treasure; Pritts writes, "A one-hundred-year-old Asian ginseng root was discovered in 1981 in the Jangbaeck Mountain Range in China" (10). Most wild roots found now average between 12 and 20 years old. Asian tradition holds that wild roots have much greater powers than do the roots of cultivated plants, and wild roots (which usually are more twisted and bifurcated than the roots of cultivated plants) bring a much higher price. Andrew C. Kimmens observes:
Miraculous cures come by legend only from wild roots, the tutelary divinities will have to do only with wild roots, and the fabulous prices - fifteen hundred dollars an ounce or more - one now hears of ginseng fetching can only be related to wild roots from the former imperial preserve in southwestern Manchuria (1).
Hunting for ginseng roots in the wild sometimes becomes a mystical experience in itself. In China, Pritts writes, "Altars of tree l
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