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Trying to improve Acacia information

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..some test results coming through on acuminata leaf (broad leaf WA), obtusifolia twig (southern NSW) and obtusifolia x maidenii branch bark& leaf (in cultivation)..see Substance Testing section.. TLC so far..acuminata showing a few alkaloids incl.DMT/NMT, but surprisingly obtusifolia (from the same location as material tested by D. Siebert and found to be 2/3 NMT) looked like just dmt..tricky tree!:d (edit: however now seems to be the 2 alkaloids co-chromatographing)
..GCMS next week may reveal other things..all very interesting..some samples of the same plants a different time of year could help formally demonstrate seasonal variation.. also there could be variation in part of plant..a test by Jeremy (2007 cited in Voogelbreinder 2009) found more NMT in obtusifolia phyllodes along with DMT, and previous findings of high NMT levels were from phyllodes (Siebert 1997 cited by nen) and bark/phyllodes (S.C. Uni. 2000) ..almost all previous tests have found small amounts of ß-carbolines..

..what's really good to know, so far, is that the small twigs of obtusifolia contained 0.6-0.7% of the alkaloid..this is the same level as the main bark, thus there is no need to damage the main trunk of the tree (which is harmful) for the desired benefits..
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Building on PrimalWisdom's work I am attempting an A. Cyclops extraction from the leaf material.

250g of fresh leaf material was oven-dried and powderised then left overnight to dehydrate the material of any remaining water. The material was soaked in several washes of excess acetic acid at pH 4. The plant material was filtered out and discarded. The acidic solution was thick and green and smelled like the all the odour a whole tree releases in a week concentrated into a single breath. The solution was basified with NaOH to pH 9 at which point it became black and extremely pungent. Several washes of 100ml NP solvent extracted a strongly yellow transparent solution. Another acid wash left the colouring behind resulting in a cloudy acetic acid solution and a minimal amount of NP solvent on the surface left behind by a hasty decant. Upon rebasifying large amounts of a white solid precipitated and immediately saturated the small remaining amount of NP solvent. The precipitate was dissolved and extracted by repeated washes of the NP solvent.

I am currently waiting for the solvent to evaporate under a cool breeze.
 
..very interesting, and thank you dromedary :d , look forward to the crystalization..
the white solids sound promising (for DMT, NMT), upon drying indicators can be shape, and smell..
it is possible to use just a TLC plate, ammonium, acetone, heating of the plate and a UV light to give a rough indication of tryptamines without re-agents, i will try and write this method up..
..to date no substance i have bioassayed from acacias (including unknowns) has caused any serious harm, and we have Primal Wisdom's courageous pioneering bioassay, and a reported TLC indicating tentative DMT and maybe NMT..so while probably safe, it would be of course best to start with less than 20mg vaporized (never orally) in any initial test..

thanks again dromedary for contributing to our collective acacia knowledge..
 
Hi nen888,
I don't think JJ reported any new analysis of his own on simplicifolia, from what I witnessed he was citing the previously published analysis. Unless I missed something he only reported analysis of previously unanalysed species this year.

Btw regarding Clement and your comments a few pages back, for the benefit of others, we had the doubts confirmed recently in more detail, in discussion with a friend who has tried very hard to get to the bottom of this. I'll leave it at that, for the sake of avoiding any slander, but the bottom line with those reports should be to believe them when they're replicated, and so far no one has managed to find the slightest trace of all these extra alkaloids [in reference to communications about unpublished research].

Was it Medicinal Plants of West Tropical Africa you mentioned as saying nilotica contains tryptamine and leptaflorine? (can't go back and check now I'm typing this!) I re-checked the entry in that for Acacia nilotica and could find no mention of that.
 
..hey wira, i also had a conversation with J in which a lot of data was swapped..to the best of my recollection he said the fiji simplicifolia was also high in dmt/nmt..i will try to contact him for clarification..
..re: A.berlanderi..yes Trout had some doubts..attempts for clarification were 'ducked and weaved' by Clemment..so perhaps there is somtehing fishy here
but if people are not finding these trace compounds, what are they finding? i find it hard to believe just tyramine will lead to locomotive disorders in cattle..
..finally, the Oliver-Bever reference to A. nilotica must have been in error..thanks for clearing that up..
[EDIT: the reference to 'tryptamine and harmane derivatives' IS in Oliver-Bever 1986..this has been checked]
 
Quick update: I had a bit of a solvent problem - tried a new brand which apparently does not dissolve very much DMT at all. I should have noticed that the cloudiness of the basic solution was not visibly reduced by repeated solvent pulls, oh well. That evaporation yielded less than 50mg of product, most of which was wasted trying to get it out.

Now with a better solvent and access to a freezer I've repeated the entire process and finished with freeze precipitation. I have noticed after 24 hours a bunch of pure white beads the size of pinheads at the bottom and dense cloudiness that suggests there is more to come. As part of my attempt to force more DMT to dissolve in the bad solvent I salted the basic solution with NaCl until it was dense enough that all the DMT precipitate has risen to the surface of the basic solution, still sitting tantalisingly under the solvent. I wonder if I can scoop it out somehow.

nen888 said:
it is possible to use just a TLC plate, ammonium, acetone, heating of the plate and a UV light to give a rough indication of tryptamines without re-agents, i will try and write this method up..
Click to expand...

That would be excellent! I've been hoping to find a guide like that - I really want to learn some chromatography for both identification and purification but I have no idea where to start.
 
..keep up the good work dromedary..it may be better to separate the solvent layer with the precipitate (plus a little bit of basic solution), and then mix with slightly basic water and re-separate..some shellite brands do not seem to be a particularly good version of napatha for alkaloid holding capacity, lighter fluids are usually better..

thanks for the links endlessness,
..as for the above mentioned TLC method, i wish i had a video of JJ's workshop at EGA to send you, but the basics are this: mix ammonium sulfate with a small amount of NaOH in a damp bottle..run a hose from the bottle to a jar containing acetone or MEK..the NaOH will release the ammonium as a gas which will start bubbling into the acetone..buy a standard TLC plate..mix sample in a tiny amount methanol or methylated spirits..by glass capilliary tube or other method place a small spot of sample near the bottom of the TLC plate..place TLC plate upright in beaker with acetone/ammonium..wait 15 minutes..
..now, after drying the plate reagents such as Ehrlich's can be applied..or, bake/heat the plate (don't know optimum temperature) ..tryptamines, after heat treatment will fluoresce under UV (don't have the actual wavelengths handy) ..ß-carbolines will show up UV without heat treatment..also, you can buy pre-treated TLC plates and avoid the ammonium proceedure..
if looking for dmt/nmt, even in a very crude gummy quick extrcact the smell should be an indicator..
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..an Australian native of Victoria highly recommended is Acacia mucronata var. longifolia..plants in cultivation (late 90s) yielded 0.4-0.6% (stem bark) DMT, NMT, tryptamine and ß-carbolines..the amount of ß-carboline (10% of total alkaloid) enhanced and slightly slowed effects..
like A. obtusifolia, though, it is a highly variable species..there have been 3 positive Victorian reports i know of, but tests by JJ of a Tasmanian variety were negative for tryptamines..the CSIRO found var. disstiflora to be strong alkaloid positive..
A. mucronata var. longifolia is faster growing than obtusifolia..

also mentioned by JJ in his recent EGA lecture was Acacia coolgardiensis var. latoir (synon. A. latoir) from Western Australia..some plants were very high in DMT, while a few others were completely absent..just why such variation occurs is not understood..

below are 2 images of A. mucronata var. longifolia and one of A. coolgardiensis var. latoir
 

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Thanks for the info nen888 and endlessness! TLC is far more accessible than I expected and it seems especially appealing that I can make the plates myself. This is shaping up to be a good holiday project.

I've retrieved 250mg or so of white powder from the A. Cyclops so far. It smells like DMT but I won't be doing an assay until after Christmas.

The A. coolgardiensis looks vaguely familiar - I'll look out for it in the future!
 
Hi nen888,
actually I got confused with Burkill's Useful Plants of West Tropical Africa. I'll see if I can re-locate Oliver-Bever's book to check that.
Re: berlandieri staggers, early studies found N-methyl-phenethylamine to be the main alkaloid (0.28-0.66% in leaves), with tyramine, N-methyl-tyramine and hordenine reported as major alkaloids in another study [I've ref'd all this on wikipedia].
 
..A. obtusifolia really needs to be grown and not touched in the wild..it's getting less common..it needs time to keep it's future wild seed stock ready for the future..
complete respect to this tree...
 
..wira, thanks for re-checking that book..
re: A. berlandieri - while i would be surprised by many of the claimed traces in the Clemment paper, the earlier studies do not go into anything like the level of accuracy possible today, and claimed in the paper..for instance, Mulga's obtusifolia freebase extract GCMS graph had, as well as the main alkaloid (a big spike), nmt & ßcarboline..then there were 3-5 small spikes, and a few more very small spikes..these were not identified due to being only very minute levels and/or unavailability of references..a whole plant extract, at this level of detail, would conceivably and probably show quite a few traces..
..so 44 or more trace alkaloids (at 10-200ppm) seems realistic at a high enough resolution..it's more the traces in question that are controversial..
what we need are up-to-date GCMS data at this level of detail to actually refute the claims..
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..here's my merry christmas pics before i go offline..

..among the biggest fans of acacias are giraffes..they graze on a few special species including Acacia giraffe (now considered to actually be A. haematoxylon x erioloba)
..i am hoping to one day follow up strong evidence i was shown in the 90s of the leaves of this species containing DMT..
(on a note, a recent international meeting of taxonomists voted, after hot debate, to reclassify most african grouped Acacias as Senegalia or Vallecha..a senior aussie botanist argued unsuccessfully that Acacia should be kept for africa, and Racosperma used for most australian kinds..all just nomenclateral games really..they're all still Acacia to me.. )

Acacia giraffe and associates..peace and goodwill to all :)
 

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