Panax vietnamensis is a species of ginseng

Ginseng

Ginseng is any one of eleven species of slow-growing perennial plants with fleshy roots, belonging to the genus Panax of the family Araliaceae....

 in Nam Trung Bo

Nam Trung Bo

Nam Trung Bộ is one of the regions of Vietnam. It consists of the independent municipality of Đà Nẵng and seven other provinces. The two southern provinces Ninh Thuận and Bình Thuận are sometimes seen as part of the Southeast region.The region has traditionally been one of the main gateways to...

 and Tay Nguyen

Tây Nguyên

Tây Nguyên, translated as Western Highlands and sometimes also called Central Highlands, is one of the regions of Vietnam. It contains the provinces of Đắk Lắk, Đắk Nông, Gia Lai, Kon Tum, Lâm Đồng....

 regions of Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

, especially in Mount Ngọc Linh in Đăk Tô District, Kon Tum, a mountain whose name derives from the ginseng that grows there and in Trà My District of Quảng Nam Province. Besides these regions, Panax vietnamensis can be found in Mount Ngọc Lum Heo in Phước Lộc Commune, Phước Sơn

Phuoc Son

Phước Sơn is a rural district of Quang Nam province in the South Central Coastal region of Vietnam. As of 2003 the district had a population of . The district covers an area of 1,141 km². The district capital lies at Kham Duc.-References:...

District and in the Mount Ngọc Am of Quảng Nam Province. It grows at elevations between 1,200 and 2,100 m under the leaf canopy of jungles and in wet areas beside running water.

Growing

Tra Linh Commune, in the central Ngoc Linh Mountainarea, is considered the pioneer of ginseng growing in Vietnam. In 1979, the government of central Quang Nam Province established the Tra Linh Drug Materials Farm in Tra Linh Forest on Ngoc Linh Mountain. The farm grew the first cultivated Ngoc Linh ginseng, yet the enterprise was not properly developed until 1995, when the local department of science and technology invested in the farm. Since then, locals from Tra Linh Commune and surrounding areas, including places in central Kontum Province, have been growing the medicinal plant.
The commune’s Mang Lung Village now has around 5,000–10,000 ginseng plants between two and eight years old (ginseng is harvested at age seven), with 90 percent of local families growing the crop.

DNA

Panax vietnamensis is sympatric with other Panax species and has a close relationship with P. japonicus var. major and P. pseudo-ginseng subsp. himalaicus.

Medicinal uses

Ethnobotanically it is a secret medicine of the Sedang ethnic group as a miraculous, life-saving plant drug used for the treatment of many serious diseases and for enhancing body strength in long journeys in high mountains.

In tests, Vietnamese ginseng extract attenuated psychological stress-induced antinociception, produced the protective effect against psychological stress-induced gastric lesions, and restored the stress-induced decrease in pentobarbital sleep to the normal level. This action was not observed on Panax ginseng extract. Vietnamese ginseng extract showed inhibitory activity on Epstein-Barr virus early antigen (EBV-EA) activation induced by TPA. This activity was concentrated to the saponin fraction and especially, major saponin, majonoside R2 exhibited the strongest activity.