'the horror'

Ott told me that shortly after the Spanish conquest, the acacia constituent was banned from the drink (replaced with substitute), making this tree the first illegal plant in America!...

I hope you write of your experiences in there too, as you have a lot to offer on the subject of plant spirit

while some acacias with yellow flowers contain tryptamines, many also do not..on the other hand just about every acacia i've looked at with white or cream flowers is positive..whether the flowers are spike or ball shaped isn't important..
and the phyllodes should be bitter, quite bitter too..
.

i wish i had a video of JJ's workshop at EGA to send you, but the basics are this: mix ammonium sulfate with a small amount of NaOH in a damp bottle..run a hose from the bottle to a jar containing acetone or MEK..the NaOH will release the ammonium as a gas which will start bubbling into the acetone..buy a standard TLC plate..mix sample in a tiny amount methanol or methylated spirits..by glass capilliary tube or other method place a small spot of sample near the bottom of the TLC plate..place TLC plate upright in beaker with acetone/ammonium..wait 15 minutes..
..now, after drying the plate reagents such as Ehrlich's can be applied..or, bake/heat the plate (don't know optimum temperature) ..tryptamines, after heat treatment will fluoresce under UV (don't have the actual wavelengths handy) ..ß-carbolines will show up UV without heat treatment..also, you can buy pre-treated TLC plates and avoid the ammonium proceedure..
if looking for dmt/nmt, even in a very crude gummy quick extrcact the smell should be an indicator..

all of White's Acacia analyses were done on plants growing in New Zealand.
Regarding alkaloids during flowering, White often found reasonably high levels of alkaloids in the flowers, and while perhaps reduced, content in stems was sometimes still reasonable (less so in phyllodes). This was observed with longifolia and numerous others (most of this should be summed up on the wikipedia page for Acacias known to contain psychoactive alkaloids, unless someone's changed it since I last edited it).

i was pondering writing a post on seasonal variation, but there isn't a lot of systematic study..in my own research alkaloids have been reduced (not absent) and changed (e.g. more of other alkaloids) during flowering of a few species..also, floral oils can be present in stem bark which transfer to NP extractions..and as i've mentioned, heavy rain seems to affect things..others have noted this..

Acacia retinodes (Swamp Wattle, or Wirilda) being native to southern Australia, and naturalized in such diverse places as Hawaii, Bolivia, France and Spain..
it has several sub-varieties..
..one German reported test found 0.5% alkaloids (DMT, NMT, nicotine); Roveli in Australia [1967] found 0.2% of a completely unknown alkaloid, and no nicotine..

There are other forms of the deity who closely resemble Āryā Tārā but who, in addition to the above attributes, carry a second utpala lotus in the right hand. One of these is Khadiravanī Tārā or “Tārā of the acacia grove” and her distinguishing feature is that she is invariably accompanied by her attendant goddesses, Aśokakāntā-Maricī and Ekajatā.

This name, Khadiravanī, is rather mysterious, though. In India, the acacia tree is sacred to Tārā, in Mesopotamia, Ishtar was worshiped in acacia groves. When I asked a learned Tibetan lama why the khadira tree is associated with Tārā, he told me that it is because these trees grow in her paradise.

Salutations Nexians.
It has been many posts since it was mentioned (page 26) but I have posted a number photos showing the sometimes very confusing similarities in features of Acacia's maidenii and melanoxylon. Details of images in order at the end, sorry some are very blurry and not great.




Brickie forgot you asked this a while back. I have had many different experiences with Maidenii identification and extractions and I feel this information may be useful and also is more evidence to the theory that Maidenii has a number of sub types and some have a good alkaloid profile and some do not.

Began with looking at/comparing with ID books what i thought were maidenii's in september. (none were in flower but pods were usually present, and i noted subtle differences between some). All of them fitted the ID desriptions without the presence of flowers though.

I didn't look at the trees again until late april the following year and noticed that some of the presumed Maidenii's were in flower (or about to) and some were not. The ones that were in flower all had the same yellowy/creamy "spike" flowers. Again I noticed that even though they had same flowers the phyllodes shape and colour changed from tree to tree and area to area. A few months later in the year while collecting Maidenii seeds I noticed the other look - a - like Maidenii's had flowers on them quite different to the "spike one". While the pods seemed the exact same to me as Maidenii's the flowers didn't lie and I discovered it was Melanoxylon.

The following year during flowering (to be sure of ID) the branch bark of a Maidenii (500g) was A/B extracted. Yielded a little bit of oily goo that I did not bio assy. Later in the year (Aug) it was attempted again (from the same tree) and had a similar result to the first experiment, the tiny bit was bio assy'd with negative results.

A month later I tried another Maidenii branch from a tree that had different phyllodes to the first one. Didn't expect much but was surprised to get approx 2 - 3 grams of oily goo this time that when smoked introduced me to interstellar travel. *Note the oil extracted was very crude and I soaked it up with tobacco to sample*

Another extraction from a maidenii in late Feb the next year (from a new location), that looked different again to others tested, yielded a tiny amount of oil similar to the first extraction. The one tree that had the yield similar to that reported by the CSIRO had phyllodes with specific phyllode characteristics.

Again sorry the photos are not the best. some are ok

Photo 1 and 2: are of separate trees that are examples of the phyllodes of the original high yielding sub type tested. Not the actual tree but shares same phyllode characteristics)
Photo 3: One of the very low / no result sub types
Photo 4: Another low / no
Photo 5: One I have yet to test, on the list for when the rain resides
Photo 6: One of the melanoxylon forms
Photo 7: Another melanoxylon form
Photo 8: And just cause it has awesome colours/patterns (sorry I know the thread is huge), a bug i found and photographed on what I believe is Acacia penninervis.

^..yeah great Borris, good idea! ..that is a good separator..it's worth noting that some southern forms of A. melanoxylon have pink almost red arils, and can incidentally be confused with A. cyclops..
.

..i couldn't even manage a day off the net! ok..will power after this..
before i deal with analysis of phyllode..^ haha
..inspired by acacian's (and also earlier Seldom's) Initiatives in acacia research and the sharing of knowledge for the collective knowledge and good.., awaiting your 'purer-essence' tek in the Acacia Extraction Workspace, i have now finally added to the OP - The Phyllode Tek: experiment One..thank you for your input guys..i know a lot of nexians worldwide appreciate your posts..and we could do with more active posting members in general at the Nexus..come-on..this is Interactive (albeit with a slight delay)
now..phyllode..Ta (meaning 'thanks' ! and ra!
[/u]..

.one more note...on A. obusifolia, and it's oft reported accidental discovery due to being mis-identified as A. maidenii..the fourth photo.. is the strain of maidenii first [bioassayed]..after several years of successful use ['E'] took 'Mulga' to the site in question in 1996..at the time A. obtusifolia was the dominant plant and flowering at the time, leading Mulga to rapidly conclude and announce it was ob..but both species were at the site..this is how the obtusifolia x maidenii reported on p.12 was discovered..'E' maintains that the original tree from 1992 was A. maidenii, and then what was thought to be a different variety of it (actually obtusifolia) was utilized 1993-5..it was in feeling that there was something different about it that 'E' presented samples to Mulga..when Mulga tested maidenii elsewhere he got a negative result [but later i returned to this test site, the tree was flowering, and concluded that Mulga had mis-IDd what was in fact A. melanoxylon..he had assumed his ID based on location records], hence obtusifolia became the first species to be hyped, leading to it's unfortunate exploitation..there was even an internet myth once that it was a 'weed'..ridiculous..it is not that common, and mainly preserved in reserved pristine environments..

..without being any more specific, the CSIRO high % A. maidenii was collected within 100km of the NSW/Qld. border..in it's natural range, no obtusifolia around, only melanoxylon..
really i think there are 2 or 3 sub-species of maidenii, and at least 2, probably 3, of obtusifolia..

A month later I tried another Maidenii branch from a tree that had different phyllodes to the first one. Didn't expect much but was surprised to get approx 2 - 3 grams of oily goo this time that when smoked introduced me to interstellar travel. *Note the oil extracted was very crude and I soaked it up with tobacco to sample*