entheogenic-gnosis
Rising Star
This article first caught my attention in early 2015.
Dictyonema huaorani is a lichen species discovered in Ecuador, this lichens purported psychedelic effects were first reported by indigenous peoples, later a sample tested positive for psychedelic tryptamines, 4-phosphorloxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine, in particular, was of interest to me.
Has there been any follow up research regarding Dictyonema huaorani?
Has any further research even been an option as field samples are non-existent?
Did this turn out to be a dead end? Or did interest simply "fizzle out"?
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A new species of lichen has been discovered in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest, according to a recent paper published in The Bryologist. Researchers led by lead author Michaela Schmull have tentatively identified tryptamine and psilocybin in the lichen, among other potential substances.
The story is a rather unusual one. There is only one known sample of the lichen in all of Western science, and it was collected in 1981 by ethnobotanists Wade Davis and Jim Yost while conducting research in Ecuador. In a 1983 paper describing their discovery of this lichen, Davis and Yost write:
In the spring of 1981, whilst we were engaged in ethnobotanical studies in eastern Ecuador, our attention was drawn to a most peculiar use of hallucinogens by the Waorani, a small isolated group of some 600 Indians. … Amongst most Amazonian tribes, hallucinogenic intoxication is considered to be a collective journey into the subconscious and, as such, is a quintessentially social event. … The Waorani, however, consider the use of hallucinogens to be an aggressive anti-social act; so the shaman, or ido, who desires to project a curse takes the drug alone or accompanied only by his wife at night in the secrecy of the forest or in an isolated house. …
Of particular botanical interest is the fact that this peculiar cultural practise involves hallucinogenic plants, one rarely used and one until now unreported. The Waorani have two hallucinogens: Banisteriopsisniun muricata and an as yet undescribed basidiolichen of the genus Dictyonema. The former is morphologically very similar to other commonly used … species such as ayahuasca, Banisieriopsis Caapi … On the other hand, no basidiolichen has yet been reported to be employed as a hallucinogen. [emphasis mine]
In that paper, Davis and Yost described the new lichen species as “extremely rare.” So rare, in fact, that Yost had “heard references to it for over seven years before encountering it in the forest.” Imagine being an explorer, dedicating your life to studying the people and plants of far-flung regions, and finally discovering an elusive psychedelic lichen you’ve been hearing about for seven years.
Even the indigenous Waorani people did not have specimens of the lichen, which they call nɇnɇndapɇ, on hand. Natives told the researchers that its last known shamanic use was “some four generations ago — approximately eighty years — when ‘bad shaman ate it to send a curse to cause other Waorani to die.'” Wade Davis and Jim Yost became the first known Westerners to encounter nɇnɇndapɇ, and preserved the specimen for future analysis.
Fast forward 33 years. In 2014, Michaela Schmull and her colleagues analyzed the sample’s DNA and determined that it was a new species, which they named Dictyonema huaorani. (Huaorani is an alternate spelling of Waorani, the original ‘discoverers’ of this species.) Schmull’s team examined an extract of the lichen using liquid chromatography-mass spectometry (LC-MS) techniques, and identified tryptamine, psilocybin, and 5-MeO-DMT, as well as 5-methoxytryptamine (5-MeOT), 5-MeO-NMT, and 5-methoxytryptamine (5-MT).
It is important to note that without reference compounds — in other words, available samples of the chemicals in question — these results are suggestive rather than conclusive. Since compounds like 5-MeO-DMT have never been observed in a fungus or lichen before, it’s unlikely that all of these identifications are correct. And although fungi are well known for producing psilocybin, the family to which this fungal lichen belongs — Hygrophoraceae — has no other known psilocybin-producing species. Of all the mentioned compounds, the researchers speculate that their identification of tryptamine and psilocybin are most likely to be correct.
psychedelicfrontier.com
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-eg
Dictyonema huaorani is a lichen species discovered in Ecuador, this lichens purported psychedelic effects were first reported by indigenous peoples, later a sample tested positive for psychedelic tryptamines, 4-phosphorloxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine, in particular, was of interest to me.
Has there been any follow up research regarding Dictyonema huaorani?
Has any further research even been an option as field samples are non-existent?
Did this turn out to be a dead end? Or did interest simply "fizzle out"?
-----
A new species of lichen has been discovered in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest, according to a recent paper published in The Bryologist. Researchers led by lead author Michaela Schmull have tentatively identified tryptamine and psilocybin in the lichen, among other potential substances.
The story is a rather unusual one. There is only one known sample of the lichen in all of Western science, and it was collected in 1981 by ethnobotanists Wade Davis and Jim Yost while conducting research in Ecuador. In a 1983 paper describing their discovery of this lichen, Davis and Yost write:
In the spring of 1981, whilst we were engaged in ethnobotanical studies in eastern Ecuador, our attention was drawn to a most peculiar use of hallucinogens by the Waorani, a small isolated group of some 600 Indians. … Amongst most Amazonian tribes, hallucinogenic intoxication is considered to be a collective journey into the subconscious and, as such, is a quintessentially social event. … The Waorani, however, consider the use of hallucinogens to be an aggressive anti-social act; so the shaman, or ido, who desires to project a curse takes the drug alone or accompanied only by his wife at night in the secrecy of the forest or in an isolated house. …
Of particular botanical interest is the fact that this peculiar cultural practise involves hallucinogenic plants, one rarely used and one until now unreported. The Waorani have two hallucinogens: Banisteriopsisniun muricata and an as yet undescribed basidiolichen of the genus Dictyonema. The former is morphologically very similar to other commonly used … species such as ayahuasca, Banisieriopsis Caapi … On the other hand, no basidiolichen has yet been reported to be employed as a hallucinogen. [emphasis mine]
In that paper, Davis and Yost described the new lichen species as “extremely rare.” So rare, in fact, that Yost had “heard references to it for over seven years before encountering it in the forest.” Imagine being an explorer, dedicating your life to studying the people and plants of far-flung regions, and finally discovering an elusive psychedelic lichen you’ve been hearing about for seven years.
Even the indigenous Waorani people did not have specimens of the lichen, which they call nɇnɇndapɇ, on hand. Natives told the researchers that its last known shamanic use was “some four generations ago — approximately eighty years — when ‘bad shaman ate it to send a curse to cause other Waorani to die.'” Wade Davis and Jim Yost became the first known Westerners to encounter nɇnɇndapɇ, and preserved the specimen for future analysis.
Fast forward 33 years. In 2014, Michaela Schmull and her colleagues analyzed the sample’s DNA and determined that it was a new species, which they named Dictyonema huaorani. (Huaorani is an alternate spelling of Waorani, the original ‘discoverers’ of this species.) Schmull’s team examined an extract of the lichen using liquid chromatography-mass spectometry (LC-MS) techniques, and identified tryptamine, psilocybin, and 5-MeO-DMT, as well as 5-methoxytryptamine (5-MeOT), 5-MeO-NMT, and 5-methoxytryptamine (5-MT).
It is important to note that without reference compounds — in other words, available samples of the chemicals in question — these results are suggestive rather than conclusive. Since compounds like 5-MeO-DMT have never been observed in a fungus or lichen before, it’s unlikely that all of these identifications are correct. And although fungi are well known for producing psilocybin, the family to which this fungal lichen belongs — Hygrophoraceae — has no other known psilocybin-producing species. Of all the mentioned compounds, the researchers speculate that their identification of tryptamine and psilocybin are most likely to be correct.
New psychedelic species of lichen discovered: Dictyonema huaorani
An extremely rare species of lichen containing psilocybin and other hallucinogens was discovered in the Amazon rainforest. Its name is Dictyonema huaorani.
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-eg
