See text The Panax (ginseng) genus belongs to the Araliaceae[1] (ivy) family.

Panax species are characterized by the presence of ginsenosides and gintonin.

[2] Furthermore, this disjunct distribution is asymmetric as only two of the ~18 species in genus are native to North America.

The name Panax, meaning "all-healing" in Greek, shares the same origin as "panacea" and was used for this genus because Carl Linnaeus was aware of its wide use in Chinese medicine.

[citation needed] Genus Panax[3] Hybrids: Based on chloroplast genomes (Manzanilla et al. 2018 and Xia et al. 2025):[18][19] Aralia P. trifolius P. bipinnatifidus P. stipuleanatus P. quinquefolius P. ginseng P. notoginseng P. pseudoginseng P. japonicus P. major P. wangianus P. zingiberensis P. vietnamensis Note: Plants of the World Online treats P. major (Burkill) C. Y. Wu & K. M. Feng as a junior synonym of P. bipinnatifidus.