Research Seersucker Plant (Geogenanthus poeppigii) Workspace

[modern]

This is a space to collect information on Geogenanthus poeppigii.


Chemistry

Erowid Online Books : "Ayahuasca: alkaloids, plants, and analogs" by Keeper of the Trout

Ayahuasca: alkaloids, plants & analogs by Keeper of the Trout (full text) title page

www.erowid.org

Geogenanthus sp. [Commelinaceae]: "sanogarish" Used by the Machiguenga as a favored ingredient in kamarampi prior to their introduction to Psychotria viridis. Reportedly used for the patterned visions it produces. Russo et al. 1996-1997


Video reference to usage.

@4:39 the native guide shows this plant and shares his experience. Sharing effects that I'd assume is similar to 5-meo.


Threads of interest

Not much else is found online.

I couldn't find any papers or other references to chemical composition nor the dosage.

I've personally tested a small leaf at .5g fresh .07g dry and had zero effect. I'm currently growing this so I'll test scaling up slowly over the months/years.

It is cultivated for its appearance and can easily be found online for sale. Prices ranging from $15-45. I've seen some videos on propagation and it seems quite easy to clone and not a very slow grower.

 

[brokedownpalace10]

Hmmm. A quick search shows it needs "indirect light". So, like a houseplant. Another link shows "poisonous to pets" though, without any analysis.

 

[Transform]

Some members of the commelinaceae can be quite toxic - proceed with utmost caution!

Use of synonyms might turn up a bit more information:

Geogenanthus poeppigii

Family Name:	Commelinaceae
Synonyms:	Uleopsis wittianus, Geogenanthus wittianus, Chamaeanthus wittianus, Dichorisandra undata, Dichorisandra musaica var. undata, Geogenanthus undatus
Common Name:	Seersucker Plant, 銀波草

 

[modern]

Some members of the commelinaceae can be quite toxic - proceed with utmost caution!

Yea I'm going to work up very slowly... a single small leaf I can say is safe lol. Need to be even more careful since using with maoi.
Next attempt will be a single large leaf. around 1g fresh.

 

[modern]

So after a few months I have gotten around to reattempting this plant. It is indeed active at even 1g dry with maoi. I made an alcohol extract using 99% iso and evaporated completely it had a chocolate/cinnamon smell to it. Added 40mg of water swirled it and took a swig. I dosed 10min after taking 225-250mg harmalas in caapi tea since I was already feeling the effects of the harmalas.
Within 10 minutes after dosing the extract I had a warm flush on my face and skin and at this time the fear or taking an unknown substance starting to creep in causing my heart rate to increase. Not unsimilar to typtamines rush but I think more a fear head rush.
I had a glossy/glassy visual effect and also a pattern covering entire vision similar to effect of rubbing your eyes hard. But no real psychological/psychedelic effects other than some visuals.
My left ear had a pressure to it and after 5 minutes had a warm feeling but not to the touch.
Minimal time distortion and some tingling on my arms. CEV was a pulsating image similar to a stack of papers or a cube in 2D ZERO euphoria or changes in thinking.
Seems to be clear headed where I don't have background thoughts VERY grounded and present and no looping or dazing off.
100% an effect and I'll try a higher dose in the future if I don't kill my plant.
HOWEVER I didn't get the reported patterns I've read about from original natives and didn't get 'understanding how the universe works' like in the amazon tribe man describing but there are no reports of dosage of dry or fresh materiel. Maybe what I saw was a 'pattern' but in my mind I assumed closer to DMT or maybe the pattern on the leaf itself.

The effects had a very rapid onset but quite short lived. I'm unsure if it would be different if not an extract and just tea.

 

[aizoaceous]

A barely studied plant, thanks. I purchased one at a local nursery. It consisted of a few well-rooted cuttings, with new growth already visible. I harvested one leaf, 347 mg, froze it, and homogenized it by bead beating in 5 mL household vinegar. I analyzed the strikingly pink extract by HPLC, using the same method as for my Phalaris grass. This method includes detection by fluorescence, since that's reasonably specific for indole alkaloids like tryptamines. I got the following chromatogram:



I'm not sure what to make of it. There's a peak at the expected retention time for DMT but it's tiny, on the order of 1 ug per g fresh. There's no detectable 5-MeO-DMT. The largest fluorescence peak has the same retention time as gramine, but I think that's a red herring. When excited at 280 nm, this peak shows maximum emission around 350 nm, inconsistent with that and more similar to tryptamines. There's also something co-eluting in the absorption, since that peak is very wide; I should extract into ethyl acetate to maybe clean that up.

I'll keep growing my plant, if only because it's pretty, and retest when it's bigger. Are you able to run a TLC of your known active extract? It's not clear to me whether your plant is active because it's making significant DMT or 5-MeO-DMT (and mine currently isn't due to some unknown genetic or environmental factor), or whether your active constituent is a different compound, perhaps my unidentified peak. If you don't see a spot at the same height as a DMT standard then you perhaps have a small discovery. The absence of that spot would also rule out 5-MeO-DMT, since they have almost identical Rf in the usual methanol/ammonia system.

 

[modern]

I haven't done any tlc but I think I'll get around to laying some silica on glass and doing some tlc plates buying premade is out of my price range but making it seems easy enough and cheap

The experience was not entirely different than low dose DMT BUT I doubt it is at active DMT dosage at only 1 gram leaf material. I assume it is a different compound but only suspected 5-Meo-DMT based on the report the native gives in the video in OP. I've never done 5-Meo-DMT so don't know how to compare but there was little to no psychological effects. Also the very short duration I'd assume around 4g dry will be safe and a full experience of what it has to offer but I'll work up slowly.

My plant was very small and is struggling a little to grow so will be a while until I test again. But the duration was quite short.

I bought from a online nursery. Here in Brasil and it wasn't very cheap but comparable prices to USA. I assume most the plants are all clones with minimal variation since seeds would be very rare.

 

[modern]

So I'm do a proper tlc but I had a strange color when testing with elrich reagent. I got a small reaction/color but not the expected dark/purple color.

The one on the left is a psychotria sp that proved to have dmt just need to find out amount. The middle is the seersucker which has a red or very deep orange color. The third on the right is a cactus after co2 bubble extract there was a colored oil that didn't mix with the ethanol and it floated to the top but the color is yellow and likely indicated ZERO indole.

Is the red/orange color indicating of an alkaloid? I saw Phenylephrine reacts and gives a similar color

I'll need to do a proper tlc place and run the solvent to split and see rf values.

 

[modern]

"Spraying this reagent on paper chromatograms containing indole compounds produces purple, blue, and red spots. However, certain phenols have been reported1 to produce similar colours under the conditions of the Ehrlich test."

Colour Reactions of Certain Phenols with Ehrlich's Reagent - Nature

THE use of Ehrlich's reagent (1 per cent p-dimethylaminobenzaldehyde in N hydrochloric acid, for the detection of indoles, pyrroles and related nitrogen-containing compounds has been a long-established analytical procedure1,2,3. Spraying this reagent on paper chromatograms containing indole...

www.nature.com

So an indole compound is likely present in the seersucker... I'll see if it shows up on tlc later to see if can possibly get rF value using methanol:ammonia 100:1.5

 

[modern]

The these are tlc of seersucker and psychotria sp. Neither has a reagent spot at rF value 50-80 which is common location of DMT. There is a yellow stain only appeared AFTER the Ehrlich reagent was added. The psychotria MAY have dmt however it would be under the 2-5ug detection rate of the reagent. I'll try an extraction in the future once I have enough material.

First pic showing the stain and the second how it was before. Doesn't matter which is which since all plates were spotted with both.

The 3 and forth photos are a route I want to test further for quantitative estimate of the alkaloids. The dark purple in second photo and dark red on last are chaliponga leaf which had the strongest reaction indicating high content. The first darker grey and dark grey in the last photo is a charuna, psychotria viridis cultivar showing a dark but much lighter reaction. The 3 light grey was another psychotria sp different from the TLC plates also shows some reaction but much less. and the last yellow is a control I used an orchid leaf.

I think a color array of the reagent intensity is a viable method for quantitatve estimate and we can use imageJ program to measure the color intensity and better guess the content. TLC method with spotting and staining is nice HOWEVER too much work for me... this path if it can be repeatable and semi reliable is a much better path.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehrlich's_reagent

 

[aizoaceous]

Very interesting, thanks. Can you estimate the total mass of leaf corresponding to your TLC spot? For example, if you extracted 10 g into 100 uL (final volume after concentrating) and spotted 5 uL, then your spot contains (10 g)*(5 uL)/(100 uL) = 0.5 g worth of leaf. To roughly quantify, you could additionally spot standards of DMT at increasing concentrations until it's just barely visible, comparing either by eye or with image processing software. If you spot standards then the absolute volume spotted doesn't matter since it cancels, as long as you use the same volume for the standards as for the samples.

In any case, your TLC seems consistent with my HPLC in the absence of significant DMT or 5-MeO-DMT. That's inconsistent with the (briefly alleged) history of indigenous use though, and with your own positive bioassay. So for now it seems like a mystery. My plant is alive, but not too happy; I think it needs a humidity dome in my dry climate, similar to the P. viridis. I'll try to get mine healthier and extract more.

The older literature is filled with methods using color-change reagents without chromatographic separation. That's quick and easy if it works, though I wouldn't trust it on a new sample type without validation against a more specific method. If you can get xanthydrol then the color might distinguish DMT from 5-MeO-DMT, depending on the unknown interferences.

 

[modern]

Very interesting, thanks. Can you estimate the total mass of leaf corresponding to your TLC spot? For example, if you extracted 10 g into 100 uL (final volume after concentrating) and spotted 5 uL, then your spot contains (10 g)*(5 uL)/(100 uL) = 0.5 g worth of leaf. To roughly quantify, you could additionally spot standards of DMT at increasing concentrations until it's just barely visible, comparing either by eye or with image processing software. If you spot standards then the absolute volume spotted doesn't matter since it cancels, as long as you use the same volume for the standards as for the samples.

In any case, your TLC seems consistent with my HPLC in the absence of significant DMT or 5-MeO-DMT. That's inconsistent with the (briefly alleged) history of indigenous use though, and with your own positive bioassay. So for now it seems like a mystery. My plant is alive, but not too happy; I think it needs a humidity dome in my dry climate, similar to the P. viridis. I'll try to get mine healthier and extract more.

The older literature is filled with methods using color-change reagents without chromatographic separation. That's quick and easy if it works, though I wouldn't trust it on a new sample type without validation against a more specific method. If you can get xanthydrol then the color might distinguish DMT from 5-MeO-DMT, depending on the unknown interferences.

I’ll need to repeat it in the future. I used 800mg leaf/stem and hcl alcohol pulls evaporated completely and added maybe 2ml alcohol to make a solution. Then I spotted max of around 15uL? So 26mg per spot? My first attempt at liquid/liquid staining failed but when reattempted at 1:1 ratio of concentrated reagent it worked well… also I didn’t acidify the alcohol pulls this second attempt which may have helped the reaction become more noticeable. Maybe the protonated molecule doesn’t react as readily to form the color complex? I’ll repeat in the future once it gets large enough. Atleast I know these two have proline lol.

My plant has struggled for months and even looked like it was gonna die remaining only a stem for a few months. I didn’t increase humidity keeping it at normal 40-60% levels. Now it has sprouted a new stem from the soil level and seems to be completely adapted. I do the same with my psychotria. They struggle a lot in the beginning even when starting from leaf but after a few months or a year everything starts to grow well.

 

[aizoaceous]

I used 800mg leaf/stem and hcl alcohol pulls evaporated completely and added maybe 2ml alcohol to make a solution. Then I spotted max of around 15uL? So 26mg per spot?

If you extracted 800 mg of plant material into 2000 uL and then spotted 15 uL, then I think that's (800 mg)*(15 uL)/(2000 uL) = 6 mg worth? But either way, that might just be too weak. When I did my Phalaris by TLC I extracted about 6 g fresh into 100 uL, though that was by quenching of UV fluorescence and I don't know how your stain compares. You could try evaporating to concentrate and re-spotting.

I'm growing indoors in a cool and dry climate and my RH was dipping <20%. I suspect that fully explains my trouble, crispy leaf edges or entire leaves. I need to make a big cloche for all my Amazonian plants but haven't yet.

 

[modern]

If you extracted 800 mg of plant material into 2000 uL and then spotted 15 uL, then I think that's (800 mg)*(15 uL)/(2000 uL) = 6 mg worth? But either way, that might just be too weak. When I did my Phalaris by TLC I extracted about 6 g fresh into 100 uL, though that was by quenching of UV fluorescence and I don't know how your stain compares. You could try evaporating to concentrate and re-spotting.

I'm growing indoors in a cool and dry climate and my RH was dipping <20%. I suspect that fully explains my trouble, crispy leaf edges or entire leaves. I need to make a big cloche for all my Amazonian plants but haven't yet.

I do suspect that since I extracted with hcl alcohol solution it affected the formation of the stain complex. I will do an alcohol pull without added acid since it did change the behavior of the color formation.

Yea under 20% RH is quite low... around 40-60% is fine IME for most plants even tropicals but you might need to increase humidity a bit.

 

[aizoaceous]

Your eluent is basic, so the alkaloids on your TLC plate should move as the free base. It's therefore best to spot them as free base if possible. If not then some of the ammonia in your eluent gets consumed neutralizing them in situ. That's potentially fine, but may degrade your spot shape.

Excess HCl evaporates, but perhaps would still leave some acid salts behind. I'd guess that omitting the acid could only help. Separation of the alkaloids by liquid-liquid extraction would be best. Your biggest issue may simply be the concentration though, and there's little downside to spotting as much as you can. Excessive concentration may result in bad spot shape (tailing), but that's better than just seeing nothing.

 

[modern]

Your eluent is basic, so the alkaloids on your TLC plate should move as the free base. It's therefore best to spot them as free base if possible. If not then some of the ammonia in your eluent gets consumed neutralizing them in situ. That's potentially fine, but may degrade your spot shape.

Excess HCl evaporates, but perhaps would still leave some acid salts behind. I'd guess that omitting the acid could only help. Separation of the alkaloids by liquid-liquid extraction would be best. Your biggest issue may simply be the concentration though, and there's little downside to spotting as much as you can. Excessive concentration may result in bad spot shape (tailing), but that's better than just seeing nothing.

Yea I have noticed the tailing and have fixed this in the past... I do think even with the ammonia in the methanol that the alkaloids may not have been freebase.

I just don't know though since when I tried to stain the liquid solution there wasn't a complete change and only a thin layer while when doing alcohol pull the entire solution changed colors. I think it'll be worth reattempting in the future... whenever I get around to it I'll share the results. Fairly slow growing plant so months away. I may reattempt another dose at 1.5-2 grams before using for TLC.