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Albizzia Bark?

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DoingKermit

DoingKermit

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I went into my local Chinese medicine shop on my way home from the supermarket and thought "what the hell, i'll ask if they sell any acacia's or mimosa bark". What they showed me was this jar "Albizzia Bark" written on the label. After googling it a bit, there seems to be conflicting opinions from different forums about it's DMT content. Just did a search here in the Nexus and there is this thread that doesn't have any responses. Anyone know anything about this plant?

Oh yeah, when I googled Albizzia, I only get results saying Alibizia with one "z", not two. Could that be a typo made by the herbal shop?
 
I guess maybe i should buy some and try it out... maybe it has some of our beloved molecule hiding amidst the plant matter. But most likely not...
 
It's an antidepressant, working through agonism at 5-HT1A receptors through one or more unknown substance(s). Not hallucinogenic.
 
Ah, the old Persian silk tree! I spent quite some time attempting to identify the prevalent mimosa-like tree that lurks around me wherever I travel and finally settled on albizia julibrissin[I/] as by far the most likely suspect.

I too wondered at length if there were some psychedelic component in this tree, especially since they are literally all over my hometown in east Texas... There's at least one in every neighborhood, two at my house alone. I have read about the antidepressant effects of A. Julibrissin, but then again since it was a Chinese herb shop itcould have very well been A. chinensis or another of the approximately 180 species in the genus.

Still, the tree seems to have a magic around it, and I have felt cOmforted by it's silky foliage peeking through my fathers kitchen window when cooking aya or jurema.
 
Ah, looking in to it, it very well could have been A. julibrissin. It is used in Chinese medicine. I cant copy and paste, but I found a page stating that the stem-bark of the plant contains triterpenoid saponins including julibroside, hehuanoside A, and flavonoids. Julibroside J8 has been shown to be anti-angiogenic.
 
Thanks Aluminum! Thought this thread was just left to gather dust. Thanks for the extra info :) Thinking about it, i think i used to have one of these trees in my garden in Miami. I left when i was 6 so my memory is a bit hazy on whether or not it was in fact a "Persian Silk Tree".

Thanks again, buddy.
 
Didn't see that this thread was resurrected in march!

I rely love this tree! It's one of the only plants that I like this much without having eaten it first! I was reading a while back about this plant, and found a recipe for a tincture made from the flowers as an antidepressant... I'm going to do an ethanol pullon the stem bark and see what is yielded. I don't imagine that smoalking would be the way to go however! I have off and on depression, not clinical it's situational but I overreact and blow things out of proportion, and I have thought about using this pretty plant to help. Saying that, the Lack of dose information is an impediment, as I don't know what 5HT-1a antagonism is like... Does anyone know of Amy pharmaceuticals that act via this pathway? For general comparison? I'll look for that, and report on the ethanol extraction if I do it.

I once had a particular albizzia flirt with me while on mushrooms, it was tue funniest and yet a nice feeling to flirt with a plant... We knew it couldn't be, our cells are so different! My wife actually got a little annoyed by this flirtatious tree! She didn't have a thing to worry about, I love her so!
 
I looked into this yesterday when another user was requesting a tree ID. The info I found refers to the triterpenoid saponin julibroside isolated from the species, presenting anti-tumor activity against some cancerous cell lines, and as you said there's also its use as antidepressant in traditional chinese medicine. Albizia extracts are found in a few ethnobotanical suppliers.

Also, there is this study (abstract):

The present study was undertaken to investigate the antidepressant-like effects of the methylene chloride fraction of Albizzia julibrissin (MCAJ) using a tail suspension test in mice. MCAJ was orally administered at 50, 100, or 200 mg/kg to mice, 1 h before the tail suspension test. Acute treatment with MCAJ at 200 mg/kg significantly reduced the immobility time compared with the control group, and thus showed an antidepressant-like effect. This effect was comparable to that of imipramine at 10 mg/kg. This antidepressant-like effect was reversed by treatment with WAY-100635 (a 5-HT1A receptor antagonist) or pindolol (a 5-HT1A/1B receptor antagonist). However, the antidepressant effect of MCAJ was not effected by treatment with GR55562 (a 5-HT1B receptor antagonist) or ketanserin (a 5-HT2A receptor antagonist). Therefore, our findings suggest that MCAJ exerts its antidepressant-like effect via the 5-HT1A receptor system.
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I'm leaving here the full paper attached.
 

Attachments

  • Antidepressant-like+effects+of+Albizzia+julibrissin+in+mice.pdf
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thanks for the info... i thought there was no official research done with this tree. i was wondering which part of the tree is used to extract this compound, and if other compounds can be found in different parts of the tree.
 
From the paper I attached:

Traditionally, the stem bark of A. julibrissin was dried and boiled with water. Asians administered this A. julibrissin soup to patients as a folk medicine to treat insomnia, diuresis, sthenia, and confusion (Zhu, 1998 ). It has been reported that saponins (Kinjo et al., 1992; Chen et al., 1997), phenolic glycosides (Jung et al., 2004b), triterpenes (Chen and Zhang, 1997), flavonoids, and other compounds (Kang et al., 2000) have been isolated from the stem bark of A. julibrissin.

(...)

Recently, it was reported that the aqueous extract of A. julibrissin stem bark has anxiolytic-like activity in rats in the elevated plus maze test (Kim et al., 2004).

(...)

(for the present study) ...the dried powdered stem barks (750 g) of A. julibrissin were extracted twice (each time for 3 h followed by heating) with a mixture of EtOH and water (1:1) in a reflux apparatus. The extract was concentrated to dryness under vacuum. The yield of the 50% ethanolic mixture extract was 18% (w/w, 132 g). Part of the ethanolic extract (68 g) was suspended in 1 L of distilled water, and partitioned successively
with methylene chloride and BuOH. The yields of the methylene chloride, butanol and water soluble fractions were 13.3, 16.4 and 38.3%. The methylene chloride soluble fraction (MCAJ, 13.3 g) was used in the animal experimental model.
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I've seen in several ethnobotanicals suppliers dried flower extract, and that agrees with the chinese pharmacopoeia:

Michael Tierrra said:
Both the bark and the flowers of Albizia are used as a calming sedative in Oriental traditional medicine. Categorized in the Chinese Materia Medica as a calming spirit herb, the bark is thought to 'anchor' the spirit, while the flowers lighten it. The flowers have also been used for the treatment of insomnia, amnesia, sore throat, and confusion in Oriental traditional medicine as well as depression, melancholy, and anxiety.
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thanks for that info vodsen.. albizia julibrissin grows everywhere in my home town. i tried boiling some flowers last year and found it to be very calming and sedative though I wasn't aware the bark too could be used?
 
Thanks for the paper containing info on it's antidepressant effects, Vodsel. I'm so pleased this thread is still alive! I had completely forgotten about this plant, which I found last year in my local Chinese medicine shop. I may have to try an alcohol extraction and compare it to a simple brew in hot water.
 
You can smoke the flowers for a mild yet enjoyable effect. I have seen the plant go by Happiness Tree Flower & Bark. One of my favorite smoking herbs to date.
 
MaNoMaNoM said:
The flowers are in bloom here! Time to collect and extract.
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Lucky! I've been experimenting with this plant since fall. But I have been waiting for the flowers to test them. Feels like it won't happen for another 1-2 weeks though :(
 
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