Salvia Divinorum

[Alan]

Though this isn't truly a "wildcrafted" crop so to speak, it is one with which I have an intense interest in as a historical shamanistic medicine. Recently, due to teenagers with little respect or knowledge of this plants poweful medicinal properties, it has been outlawed or had heavy restrictions placed upon it in certain states and cities and moves have been taken to schedule this valuable and historical plant.

I recently bought 8 plants which are on their way here now, two each of the four available varieties. Bio-Diversity is not this plants strong suit. It rarely sets seed and when it does set seed the seed is normally sterile with only 30% or less germinating. My belief is that this is a cross species cross between to related species with differing numbers of chromosomes, which would explain the sterility of the seed.

The plant is from the Oaxacana region of Mexico and has been used for centuries by the Shamans of the area as a pain killer, a tea to revive those thought to be on their deathbed. Also there are stories of medicine men using this tincture to cure one of a "stomache stone" a supposed superstitious disease caused by a Bruja (evil witch) placing a spell on the victim. Untill recently this was dismissed by researchers as just a folk tell until some merit and a small but intriguing bit of research was put into the idea that maybe "stomache stone" actually meant cancer and mice were treated with Salvia which slowed and in some cases stoped the growth of cancer!

[flowerpower]

Alan, you think you'll be able to clone them? I'd definitely be interested in a few if you do. It will compliment my False Aralia. I think it's so stupid to put restrictions on it. Morning Glory have no restrictions. And they can be halluciongenic when prepared the right way.

[Alan]

Thats what I'm hoping to do flowerpower and as long as it remains legal I'll offer cuttings here for everyone. Your at the top of the list!

[jason]

That's cool alan. I don't think many people have messed with the breeding of divinorum. Some interesting plants have come out of just self pollinating and saving seeds it even seems. Just keep an eye open, the plant is getting scheduled pretty fast. I think I heard it was proposed recently that indiana make it schedule one, i would really hate to see anything bad happen to you.

[Alan]

They would never be able to controll it here in rurual Indiana. Too much training for the cops to go through to identify it, LOL. They probably can't even pronounce the word, I know my father cant, he was like "saliva what?". It will be one of those things like poppies, yep, processing opium is illegal, and technically so is growing opium poppies, but no one ever says anything and we plant a big field of those and sunflowers right next to the highway.

[jason]

Haha, yeah alan. My uncle is a cop and was telling me about legal 'sativa' which all the kids are apparently doing. Regardless of enforcement schedule one scares the heck out of me.

[johno]

Is there a lethal dosage, like Jimson weed? Or is it a harmless God-given painkiller?

[Alan]

From what I've read Johno, the only lethal dossage of Salvia Divinorum is stupidity. It's basically just a mild halucinagen with pain killing and medicinal properties.

Schedule one is scary. Though it looks like Indiana is still a couple of years out on anything.

[tomc]

Without searching for pix of the plant, Alan does it set low branches? If yes, it aught to be a candidate for airlayering.

[flowerpower]

One site said you can put cuttings in soil with or w/o rooting hormone. I like the shape of the leaves. And the flowers are almost identical to garden sage.

[Alan]

It's supposed to be very easy to root cuttings from. Probably attributable to the fact that most the few seeds it sets are sterile. I'm definetly going to be doing some experimenting with it to learn the best possible methods to propogate this plant.

For those who are interested and have some free time, there is an excellent documentary on Youtube. Just search for Sacred Weeds Salvia Divinorum documentary and you should gome up with it in 6 or so easy to digest videos. Pretty interesting to say the least.

[Alan]

I got the first two plants in todays mail from the sage wisdom web-site. They are the "Blosser" strain and are absolutely beautiful and healthy. The plants have a strange sort of attractiveness to them, the stems are almost square in shape and the leaves have a strange sheen to them that is very attractive. I am very impressed by the quality and look forward to growing and propegating the 6 strains that I have on order. As long as it stays legal here in Indiana I will offer cuttings to those who live in other states where it is still legal.

I'll take some pictures tomarrow.

-alan

[Jim]

Good luck with your adventures. I'll definitly be interested.

[Alan]

Thanks Clarkbar, will keep you updated. I took a couple of pictures of the first two plants of the "blosser" strain that I recieved in the mail the other day, I also potted them up to five gallon nursery pots. You can check them out at the picasa site at:

picasaweb.google.com/bishopshomegrown

[flowerpower]

Those are some pretty nice-sized plants. They look really good. Can you imagine a cop trying to identify that? They'd have to be really knowledgeable about plants. It has no distinctive leaf shape or flowers that make it easy to identify.

I keep my False Aralia plants in the back of the deck. I don't want the damn thing getting stolen by some teenagers. Then they find out its not for smoking. lol