plant test/micro extraction?

[Cyrus_Hyde]

apologies if this is in the wrong place..

I am currently caring for a dmt containing plant that is fairly well known for its use in ayahuasca.. what's giving me pause is that this plant's stomata have recently begun excreting a significant amount of a white crystalline substance which is carpeting nearly the entire underside of the leaves.
this is not something I've witnessed in my thirty odd years of horticulture, at least not to such an extent, and I am quite intrigued by it.
is there a test or a significantly scaled down extraction tek I could run on a small scraping of these crystals to verify that they are not just benign salts?


edited to add photos for the curious. close-ups taken with 15x BelOMO loupe and android phone camera

 

[endlessness]

Easiest would be to scrape a bit, buy some ehrlich reagent and put a drop of it in those crystals to see if it turns purple.. If so, good sign it's some goodies, and then more specific tests can be some to find out exactly what it is.

What species is it? Psychotria viridis or Diplopterys cabrerana?

 

[Cyrus_Hyde]

P. viridis, variety unknown.

I will track down the reagent and update with results.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Very curious. It looks like wax, and almost hair-like in texture. What consistency does it have? Crunchy like crystals?
It's almost as though the leaves are growing rootlets. Could it be due to a virus? Or maybe something to do with humidity conditions? (My experience with growing Psychotria is only slightly more than zero so take my observations with that in mind).

While waiting for the delivery of Ehlrich's reagent, how about doing a few solubility tests in things like neutral, acidic and basic water, acetone, alcohol, and naphtha?

 

[Cyrus_Hyde]

you may very well be onto something in regards to them being rootlets. they do not appear to scrape off the leaf as a hardened substance would, more of an organic mush. a few quick tests show insolubility in water, alcohol, and acetone. I have isolated one of the plants in 100% humidity to see if these will continue growing. Ehrlich's seems entirely unnecessary at this point, but I jumped the gun and have some on the way.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Well indeed, the Ehrlich's will come in useful in the long run.

I wonder if this phenomenon is similar to the way tomato plants sprout aerial roots if they aren't getting enough water. It is pretty crazy-looking, even in the knowledge that chacruna propagates very readily from leaf fragments. Hopefully, an experienced chacruna grower might be able to throw a little more light on the matter (pun not entirely intended).

PS: Seeing as the plant seems to be growing these roots, it may be worth propagating a few leaf cuttings. They've something of a head start, one might say.

 

[lostheplott]

I have seen something similar on a cannabis plant, that turned out to be powdery mildew!

Are you 100% sure they are forming from the stomata?

 

[downwardsfromzero]

How's it looking now?

I think if it were powdery mildew we'd see powdery-looking patches on the upper surface of the leaves.

 

[Cyrus_Hyde]

I'm going to chalk this up to a weird environmental anomaly which occurred under a very specific set of conditions.. for whatever reason the rootlets on all the affected plants browned and died over the past week. I'm still adjusting the variables, but have yet been unable to replicate the results.
I will be sure to come back and update this if anything changes.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

My guess is a particular combination of (diminished?) soil moisture relative to the ambient humidity. There's some browning visible on the edge of the leaf. It may even have been due to the then-imminent full moon! Or all that and more. But, as I've said, I'm about as far from being an expert as possible. Closest I got was a P. colorata leaf cutting which my then toddler killed by repeatedly dragging onto the floor :x