Yin energy likes the Yang environment. Yang environments would include high altitude locations, scanty rainfall, warm, dry, and bright surroundings. Yang energy likes Yin environments. Yin environments would include low elevation locations, moist, cool or cold temperatures, darkness or shade. Ginseng's growth environment is both Yin and Yang in nature.
Ginseng only grows in the deep forest. It doesn't grow exposed on the planes. This growth tendency belongs to Yin, but ginseng also prefers high elevations and this is a growth tendency that belongs to Yang. That's why we say that Ginseng is Yang within Yin. Because ginseng has both a Yin nature as well as a Yang nature in its growth environment it can tonify both body fluids (which is Yin in nature) as well as Qi (which is Yang in nature).
Ginseng grows in a cold and slightly moist environment. It develops attributes opposite to these qualities while at the same time, absorbs these qualities as well. This is why we can call ginseng's raw form Yang within Yin. The moist, slightly cool energetic resonates with the nature of the Spleen which is an organ that tends to be on the cool and moist side. That is one reason the Spleen can easily suffer form cold and/or dampness as a pathology.
The color of Ginseng is a yellowish white. This indicates that the first Zang organ affected is the Spleen and the second is the Lung. The taste is sweet and it has a moist, slightly cold quality in it's unprocessed form having absorbed those energies from its growth environment.
The herbal classic "Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing" says that Ginseng tonifies all five Zang organs. We cannot dispute this thought, but believe that there is an order in which the ginseng tonifies. Ginseng works first on the Spleen because the environment in which it grows is metaphorically similar to the spleen; cool and moist.
Ginseng begins by warming and tonifiying the Spleen which ends up pushing liquids up to the lungs, this according to Zang Fu theory as well as the flow of energy in five element theory. The Lungs, which are the mother of the Kidneys, can send the Qi downward there to be stored. Again, this holds true in both Zang Fu theory as well as the mother-child relationship in five element theory. When the Kidney is tonified, it can produce Yin to nourish the Liver, and Heart. So ginseng can tonify all five Zang organs, but it is an indirect tonification. It directly enters the Spleen and Lungs and secondarily the other three Zang organs.
Another reason that ginseng has the ability to tonify all five Zang organs is that it takes years for ginseng to be ready for harvesting, it receives energy from each season and develops a very complicated energetic nature. It includes energy from all four seasons which resonate with the five Zang.
