What are the varieties of ginseng? What is the difference between a thorny ginseng and a sea cucumber?

　Thorn ginseng is a kind of sea cucumber, and its common varieties are imitation ginseng, plum ginseng, green thorn ginseng and flower thorn ginseng. Thorn ginseng has a higher value than sea cucumber, so the price will be more expensive than the general sea cucumber.

　　What are the varieties of ginseng?

　　1. Imitation ginseng

　　Imitation ginseng is also known as gray ginseng, thorn ginseng, gray ginseng, sea rat, that is, people's colloquial thorn ginseng. It is 20–40 cm long, cylindrical in shape, and has 4-6 rows of irregularly arranged conical flesh spines (called wart feet) with a dorsal bulge of varying sizes; The ventral surface is flat and the tubes and feet are densely packed in irregular 3-row longitudinal bands for adsorbing rocky reefs or creeping crawls. The mouth is located at the anterior end, partial to the ventral surface, with 20 frieze-like tentacles, and the anus is biased to the back; The skin is sticky and smooth, muscular, and the body can be extended or curled. The size, color and number of fleshy spines often vary with the living environment, preferring to inhabit the slow flow of water, no fresh water injection, seaweed-rich fine sand seabed and rock reef bottom, day and night; Summer sleep when the water temperature is high in summer; Dirty discharge when the environment is not timely; It has a strong regenerative ability, and can regenerate after damage or cutting. Ginseng is distributed in China's Shandong, Liaoning and Hebei coastal areas, the main production in Weihai, Yantai, Dalian, Changshan Island, etc., the fishing period is from November to June of the following year, especially June and December, July to September is the summer sleeping season of Ginseng. The body wall of thorn ginseng is thick and soft, which is one of the best quality in sea cucumber and is known as the "crown of ginseng".

　　2. Flower ginseng

　　Also known as "yellow ginseng", "white thorn ginseng", "square ginseng", etc., they are very common edible Dalian sea cucumber in the South China Sea, its body length is 20-40 cm, the ginseng body is cylindrical, the back is arranged with different sizes of meat spines (wart feet), the abdomen is flat, the tube foot is dense, the mouth is located at the front end, biased to the ventral surface, there are 20 frieze-like tentacles, and the tentacles are biased to the back; It belongs to the "Thorn Ginseng family", with higher yields and better quality, but it is too soft and tender.

　　3. Plum ginseng

　　Also known as "pineapple ginseng", because of its body surface thorns and pointy, flesh thorn base connected and "plum blossom" shape and named, the body color is pure black or red; Good sea cucumber produced in the South China Sea of China; But it is not very popular because of its slightly bitter taste; However, Chinese medicine believes that it has the effect of clearing heat and removing liver fire.

　　4. Square ginseng

　　Also known as "green thorn ginseng", "square pillar ginseng", "sea stick mallet" or "sea rat", etc., belongs to the sea cucumber family, mainly produced in the North Sea and Hainan Island of China; Its body is four-sided, and each edge has a row of small round-headed spines, and the color is slightly reddish, and the individual is not large. It is also in the same family as a kind of body shape and body color are like sweet potatoes, so the sea cucumber named "Haitian melon", the body is spindle-shaped, the front end is blunt, and the rear end has a distinct tail. The body is flesh-red; The body walls are thin and translucent. Burrowing in the mud and sand of shallow seas. It is found along the coast of China and in the shallow seas of Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia and other places; The edible value is low.

　　What is the difference between a thorny ginseng and a sea cucumber?

　　First, the difference in the growth environment

　　Ginseng: grown in the deep sea area, no pollution, due to natural environmental factors, affected by the tides, sea cucumber has no fixed food, mostly seaweed and seabed microorganisms for food, pure natural growth, long growth cycle so that the nutrients contained in it are extremely rich. The fishing of thorn ginseng has a certain seasonality, and the sea cucumber with insufficient growth age is generally not fished, which is why the flesh of the thorn ginseng is thick, the taste is good, the active substances accumulated in the body are many, and the nutritional value is high.

　　Farmed sea cucumbers: Cofferdams or shrimp ponds have shallow water levels, sufficient sunlight, and sea cucumbers grow quickly and have low nutrient accumulation, just as the value of farmed turtles is much lower than that of wild turtles. What is more alarming is that in the process of breeding, some sea cucumber farmers add antibiotics to the pond of cultivated sea cucumber in order to prevent and control pests and diseases; In order to promote the rapid growth of sea cucumbers, growth hormone, etc. is added to the feed, resulting in drug residues in adult sea cucumbers, which is potentially harmful to the human body. Its nutritional value is also lower than that of ginseng.

　　Second, the difference between shapes and bodies

　　1, the bottom foot: thorn ginseng generally grows in the water depth of about 20 seas, through the bottom foot action to find food, so the bottom foot grows short and stout; Because the captive sea cucumber does not need to be moved because of the long-term use of the bait released by the farmers, and lives in shallow water areas, the action of the bottom foot is reduced, the adsorption force is poor, and it becomes slender.

　　2, sand mouth: the sand mouth of thorn ginseng is large and hard. In terms of flesh, wild sea cucumbers grow in deep waters (15 to 20 meters), low water temperature, little sunshine, slow growth, thick and elastic flesh, thick and full of tendons, and rich in deposited nutrients; Captive sea cucumbers grow fast, and the flesh is soft and not tight.

　　3, form: thorn ginseng is spindle-shaped, the middle of the two ends of the thick, short and thick, looks very strong; Captive sea cucumbers, on the other hand, grow slender and lack tenacity.

　　4, backstab: the back of the thorn and the thorns on both sides are the same thick, and captive sea cucumber because of the impact of the growth environment, the back and the two sides of the thorn thickness and length may not be the same, and the slender length of the thorn length appears to have no sense of strength.

　　Third, the difference in taste

　　Wild ginseng is very resistant to cooking, even if the cooking time is slightly longer, it will not have much impact, the cooked sea cucumber body is elastic, the spines are translucent, the flesh is tendon, there is a bite, the taste is good; Captive ginseng is not resistant to cooking, and when it is cooked for a little longer, it will be steamed, and the meat lacks toughness and taste bad.

　　Fourth, the difference in growth years

　　Wild ginseng is generally grown for more than 4 to 5 years before reaching the fishing standard, and the longer the nutrient deposit, the greater the tonic value.

　　Sea cucumbers with high nutritional value recognized by the medical community are produced in the waters of Dalian Ocean Island and Zhangzi Island, and the growth period is 3-5 years of wild sea cucumbers. Here the temperature, water depth, salinity ** suitable for the growth of sea cucumbers, sea cucumbers grow long, far from land, not polluted by man, the quality of the sea cucumbers produced is superior.