Artemisia ludoviciana ssp. mexicana
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Artemisia ludoviciana ssp. mexicana

Artemisia ludoviciana ssp. mexicana A member of the Aster Family, Artemisia ludoviciana Nutt. ssp. mexicana (Willd. Ex Spreng.) D.D. Keck (known commonly as Mexican Wormwood and Western Mugwort) is found throughout the Southwestern United States in addition to both the dry and warm zones of Mexico.  In the monumental Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants: Ethnopharmacology and…

Solandra spp.
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Solandra spp.

Solandra spp. As was the case with so many other plants and fungi in the Americas during the colonial period, Tim Knab maintains that Catholic priests, attempting to prohibit the Huichol (Wixárica) ritual use of Solandra (whose common name is Kiéri), “probably destroyed many of the plants in their unsuccessful effort to stamp out idolatry in the…

Zea luxurians
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Zea luxurians

Zea luxurians The website Native Seeds Search provides the following information about Teosinte, whose name derives from the Nahuatl word for sacred corn (teotl + cintli): “Teosinte is an extremely important crop, as it believed that the subspecies parviglumis is the wild progenitor of corn.  About 9,000 years ago, teosinte grew wild, as a grass-like plant,…

Salvia divinorum
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Salvia divinorum

Salvia divinorum The most comprehensive overview of Salvia divinorum, a member of the mint family, was published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology in 2013 by a team of researchers headed by Ivan Casselman.  Their article “concentrates on the investigation of Salvia divinorum over the last 50 years including ethnobotany, ethnopharmacology, taxonomy, systematics, genetics, chemistry and…

Psilocybe cubensis
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Psilocybe cubensis

Psilocybe cubensis All multicellular forms of life, including plants, animals and fungi, evolved from eukaryotic cells. A more accurate title for the website would identify this key psychoactive fungus as a thallophyte and the flowering vascular plants as angiosperms. At any rate, plants and fungi live in symbiosis, by means of mycorrhizal associations that facilitate…

Turbina corymbosa and Ipomoea spp.
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Turbina corymbosa and Ipomoea spp.

Turbina corymbosa and Ipomoea spp. According to Wade Davis, Albert Hofmann, the inventor of LSD, discovered that “the active principles of ololiuque [Turbina corymbosa] were two indole alkaloids, lysergic acid amide and lysergic acid hydroxyethylamide, compounds that he already had sitting on the shelves of his lab.” About this and other members of the Convolvulaceae…

Lophophora williamsii
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Lophophora williamsii

Lophophora williamsii Wade Davis hopes that we always keep in mind a fundamental truth regarding this cactus: “In fact, we now know, based on recent archeological discoveries, that the native people of Mexico have eaten peyote for seven thousand years.” About what they characterize as a “divine cactus” used by the Huichol (Wixárica) of Mexico,…

Datura innoxia
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Datura innoxia

Datura innoxia According to Peter T. Furst, “Datura, toloache from the Nahuatl toloatzin, in Mexico and also in Indian California, was, and in many places still is, the ritual intoxicant of choice among native peoples of the Southwest and northwestern Mexico, including the Tepehuan.” Also called Mexican Thorn Apple, this plant was used by the…

Salvia apiana
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Salvia apiana

Salvia apiana A website for the Department of Biology at the University of San Diego contains the following information about Salvia apiana, a well-known and popular smudging plant: “White sage is an important and sacred plant for Native Americans.  This plant provides both food and medicine for the Kumeyaay.  The seeds of the white sage…

Hierochloe odorata
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Hierochloe odorata

Hierochloe odorata The Sweetgrass in the image for the Microcosms website was growing in a North Country backyard in upstate New York. Its name in Mohawk (Kanien’keha) is Óhonte Wenserákon.  In an entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia, this plant with its distinctive red color at the base of its long fragrant leaves used for making…

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