Freakosystem

Can't help you with your main question but might be able to help with an identification if you supply a photo. There may be existing literature on the species in question.

Hi all, My white Leonotus leonuris is chokkas with flowers so I decided to pick about half. They're sticky from both nectar and resins and after picking a few handfuls, my hands were coated in a thin layer of sticky residue. I decided to give them a quick lick as I've heard most people find the flowers quite pleasant to smoke or drink as a tea. This was disgusting! Almost as bitter as Calea which is no joke! Anyway, it's 15 minutes later and I feel slightly different but not in a way I can really describe. Almost like after you sober up post psychedellics and everything still feels a little different until you wake the next morning. It could be placebo. Anyway, I've now got several handfuls of flowers and I don't know what I should do with them. I'm considering dehydrating them for use as tea or smoking later though I'm not used to smoking and think I should only partially dry them for that purpose before curing at the correct moisture conte t which would be pure speculation on my part. Is there anything else worth trying? Water or alcohol extracts, for example?

What area are you in? What sort of soils? I've got quite a few packs to send.

I'm not sure where you're based (actually Kakadu?) but on the coast in NSW they're super easy to grow, neutralizing as a garden escapee in several locations. It was quick to wilt when left unwatered when young but has never had any difficulties.

I'm not a smoker so don't really have much to compare it to. I'm trying to develop smoking mixes for a friend so they can ease off the tobacco consumption. They've expressed interest in a tasty alternative with lower nicotine content as a way of weaning off the crappy commercial stuff. The idea being the taste is the incentive to work past the lower nicotine content. I'll include it in a few blends and see why they think. Cheers.

Hmmmmmm. I see where I went wrong here. I'll try anything twice though. No good, Glaukus? That sucks. I read a few reports stating they were really pleasant. I was hoping to make some dry herb vape blends but may end up just chucking this ingredient out if there's no effect and it's flavour is unpleasant. Thanks for the reply.

Guess it's not that interesting. I'm happy to post some out if anybody wants to try and report back with whatever method they used and how much success they had.

Where are you based? Are you aware of the quarantine restrictions in Australia surrounding Musa and relatives? Importing banana into Australia is extremely dangerous due to the possibility of importing Panama Disease (Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense) which could completely overthrow Australia's banana industry in a few years. If these seeds are from outside of Australia, I urge everyone to avoid buying these for national biosecurity reasons.

Seems a little late, huh? A patch I've been monitoring had begun fruiting in in late March and still has mature fruits currently. The particular form of these fruits are incredibly large with a pronounced conical pileus and thick stipes. During seasons peak, some of the fruits reached 9cm across the pileus, stood 12cm from the soil and had a stipe approximately 1.2cm thick. The difference in morphology and extended fruiting season have caused me to consider this may be a distinct taxon. Does anybody here work in mycology or have contacts who would be interested in examining this? I'm interested in finding somebody who is in the Sydney area and is a published researcher if possible as I don't want to risk posting material or break any laws. Speaking of which, can anybody clarify the legal position of posting spores? Is it just generally considered an acceptable risk or is it in fact a legal exchange?

While I think about it, any chance we can get a reminder of the photo file restrictions (pixel width/height and file size) in the attachment section of reply posts? I don't remember these things well and can't find them after searching the forum for "photo size upload" or similar. I'm too young to be this crap with software and yet here I am...

Thanks for the correction ph7. You know when you think about one species but have the name of another? Yeah. I hate that. Well if anybody knows why I shouldn't give it a go, let me know.

Well everything is cheaper. Much cheaper. And extractions of most non-agricultural crops produce very high quality reads now (a few years ago it was mostly crops that produced high quality reads). It's still difficult to predict what species will work though. Even between different populations of some species you can get chemotypes that won't extract properly from one method or another. If one extraction method fails, try another. Always sample the very tip of clean, healthy new growth to ensure you don't sequence anything you shouldn't. Also, new growth has higher cell density and since each cell has three sets of DNA, you've got a higher DNA to other material ratio which helps with extraction. I'm assuming you want to mess with genes on the nuclear DNA? Keep in mind you've also got chloroplast and mitochondrial DNA too. They're generally more useful for long term lineage resolution.

How many are you looking for? I've got some. Happy to give them away.

I sometimes write their address in the sender info. I.e. I'll send a package: "To: P. SHERMAN 42 Wallaby Way Sydney, 2000 From: P. SHERMAN 42 Wallaby Way Sydney, 2000" This way if the address becomes illegible, they'll attempt to send it back to sender and it has a second chance of making it there. The risk is that it will get destroyed if there is a mistake with the address.

Could be wrong but... 1) Hypholoma fasciculare 2) Deconia sp. 3) Stereum sp. 4) Dunno.

Coprinellus disseminatus for the fungus Pittosporum revolutum for the plant

This is Leratiomyces ceres.

"You can buy spores or mycelium [the bacterial colony of a fungus], but if you want to do it organically, you need to find a ghost mushroom and create a spore print," Ms Thomas said. Oh no! Somebody didn't learn their kingdoms of life... Has anybody successfully fruited Omohalotus nidiformis? A friend had a good culture going and innoculated many logs as well as filter patch bags as per the morphologically similar Pluerotus species and whilst the mycelium was very aggressive, they never fruited.

I think that's a false dichotomy. The answer is yes.

Ricinus? Like actually? I'll apply glyphosate by spit spraying it from my mouth before I start messing with that stuff. I love the warning on the chilli one. Unfortunately I've found chilli to be useless on most things. For a start, it only works on mammals (not insects) and the ones I get (native rats, exotic rats, bandicoots and possums) aren't affected at all. Most of my Butch T Scorpions got taken from the bush before I got to harvest them. I have no idea how much these animals suffered but I would have wanted to die. Regardless, they came back. Nicotine is very toxic to many things and will kill pollinators so I avoid that. I've never heard of the custard apple trick. I'll read into it. What are the target species? Thanks for sharing.

Terrible. I don't even remember the last rain. In natural environments your only viable options are sheltered south facing slopes on edge of escarpments or edges of large grassy fields as both these places may hold enough fog and dew to encourage fruiting. Alternatively, parks, gardens, golf courses and council reserves may have sufficient irrigation to induce fruiting. Worst year I've seen, sadly.

Pterostylis hispidula

A Botany Bay Weevil from my backyard

Happy birthday almighty leader. What sort of cake do you like?