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Yagé Varieties and Their Names By Jonathon Miller
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Heimia spp.
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Flying plants: Past, Present and Future of the Angel’s Trumpet (Brugmansia spp.), a Sacred Plant Intimately Linked to Human History
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Desfontainia spinosa
Desfontainia spinosa Richard Evans Schultes, in his pioneering article from 1977 “Desfontainia: A New Andean Hallucinogen,” describes collecting Desfontainia spinosa twice in Colombia’s Sibundoy Valley, first in 1942 and then in 1953. The Kamsá and Ingano shamans that Schultes consulted called the plant borrachero de páramo and told him that they would drink a tea…



