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OK I'm on the march. Psilo, you inspire me Anyone wanting Kaempferia galanga ( not the culinary variety but I believe it can be used safely in cooking ) please email me You'll need to provide a self addressed padded post bag to the weight of 100g, and its to get sent from Lismore. Postage costs will of course vary depending which part of the country you're in, so check. Rev? You interested?

Errr...uummm. Hmmph Torsten conclusively ID'd the galangal I sent out to various parties as the culinary variety. Dammit. Another case of species misidentification by Medicine Garden, as it was purchased labelled as a Kaempferia about four years ago Apologies for any inconvenience, hassle, disappointment etc

Somewhere on my hard drive...I have heaps of archives from the early days of a.d.c. prior to the collapse of penet.fi remailer. All sorts of unsorted crap was kept in the desparate hope I'd have time to sort out the true from the entirely apocraphyl. Don't tell me these would be of historical interest? Wat happened to entheogen.co and drooldonkey? Did I miss something again?

No worries! All we have to do now is monitor the flowering sitch to confirm species

Ethical harvesting here puhleeease! Use bark from branches that have fallen to the ground ( for botanical specimens only ). Consider cultivating your own plants. Last thing any endangered spp needs is irresponsible mass harvesting

Sorry to those of you who got it together and sent your envelopes early, I've been waiting for everyone else to get their yak together. Got sick of waiting today, and split the plant up. At least the general slackness has meant that there's heaps for those who sent their envelopes :-) They'll go in the mail tomorrow. Apologies for the wait darklight

Mornin' alll I've only received one envelope so far from the half dozen ppl who wanted this. I'll give it another ten days or so before I repot the plant and pull it apart for giveaways, but I won't leave it much longer than that so hurry if you would still like a plant

That'd be right...now I'll have to wait for the damn thing to flower for sure. Ah well, not the first time its happened at that supplier Didn't get it here [This message has been edited by Darklight (edited 03 March 2001).]

Theo I will happily mail you some for expert analysis but I'll need an addy. Your profile doesn't list one. Were you for real or have I missed another subtlety? As an out Bimbo, this haappens a lot

Oops, sorry you're right. I should have made that clear and acknowledged the source docco. Was just trying to post some info to differentiate it from culinary variety

Thanks for those URLs theo, I checked them out. It could be parvifolia too, but the plants in that photo wasn't developed enough to show more than similar morphology & leaf colour. I wish it would flower, I've had it for about five years now Leaf veins aren't as pronounced as Boesenbergia, but who knows? Ah...meteorites of the French Resistance. Sorta like alien abductions of the late C20. Peasants then were no more credible than peasants now, it seems

Doubting is the keystone of good science ROTFL. Mine has never flowered, which makes the number of flowers very small indeed. And it is only a foot tall, has been for years. Fair enough on the taxonomy question too, its a constant problem. It will only be confirmed when my plant flowers of course, and it wouldn't be the first I've had from that source ( *not* SAB ) which needed re-identification. I'm pretty confident with this one tho

Oops...better add some info. Its not available from the species data list here and the Lycaeum don't seem to list it anywhere anymore... GALANGAL Family: Zingiberaceae Genus: Kaempferia Species: galanga A smooth stemless or short stemmed herb that grows to about 1.5 meters, its round leaves grow to about 12 cm long and up to 12 cm wide. The leaves are flat spreading. The flowers form a terminal spike and are white with deep red veining. It grows in open grassy areas and is found from tropical Africa through India to northern Queensland. The rhizome is rich in essential oils and is highly aromatic. There is also a spice called galangal, which is a common name belonging to a completely different species. Effects: Pleasant dreams and mild hallucinations. History: Used by the natives of New Guinea in the Morobe & Fore regions as an hallucinogen, as described in the movie The Valley, obscured by clouds (the one with the Pink Floyd soundtrack). Used in the Philippines as a folk medicine. Also used by Aleister Crowley as an incense in the Liber Samekh, a ritual for 'communicating' with your 'holy guardian angel'. Never tried it personally, will one day I suppose

Okay I have transcended grouchy and am feeling all co-operative again Just send me a stamped padded post bag with enough postage on it to cover 100g. I'll email you more details

I have stacks of Kaemmpifera galangal ( not the culinary one but I believe it can be substituted...correct? ) Only trouble is I never get time to go outside into the garden Where are you Psilo_smylin ( I'm too lazy to look up your profile ). I don't feel like paying postage either, maybe its PMT or something. I'm in NSW near the conference venue...maybe someone closer has it?

Commercial, pharmaceutical coedine from suspension culture of papaver presumably? Sheesh last time I even looked at suspension culture ( long time ago )the only things produced from suspension culture of papaver was norsanguinarine. Still I spose things have moved on from then. Any refs?

Dunno bout that, mine looked like it was pushing itself away from the scop too when the graft was taking. There is only the smallest & wobbliest point of contact remaining between the two and the loph looks like it will one day topple over under its own weight

Yep, it was just one piece, run vertically over the top. Cut was made with a sterile scalpel blade, contact was full & its worth noting that both the Loph and the scop were big enough so there was heaps of space left for light etc. I think micropore comes in different widths. I use 1", YMMV. I also still reckon I was lucky, it was my first grafted cactus

Tr scop, but I'd have to confirm the correctness of ID with Torsten cos my place is a haven of misidentification. Tr scop was the name on the label anyhow

Actually the loph graft of which ye speak is 8cm tall and 3cm wide...I just measured it No I'm not boasting, I think I just lucked out on this one When I started it I supported the graft with 3M micropore tape ( from chemists ) Don't know whether this influenced its success or not.

Isn't at least *some* of the stuff sold as pyrethrum synthetic anyhow? I've been caught out a couple of times by labelling on those spray bottles. The mixtures often contain what they describe as synthetic pyrethrinoids and a surfactant to make the pesticide spread better. Yet they are sold labelled as pyrethrum spray. Very misleading, check your labels folks And to top it off I seem to have a rxn to something in the commercial brands ( prolly surfactant )which makes me very ill for an hour or two bout fifteen minutes after I spray. Torsten's mix didn't have that effect at all.

Without doing much thinking here...Catha edulis and Yerba mate ( Ilex paragu-something or-other )spring readily to mind. The first doesn't contain any caffeine but does contain stimulant alkaloids if prepared from fresh leaves ( its just made like normal tea ). Yerba mate conntains caffeine Dandelion & chicory root are often used as coffee substitutes. There's prolly a million others. One thing to take note of, when distributing or consuming coffee substitutes, is that caffeine containing substances should be described as such. Some ppl can't handle caffeine at all, and end up consuming it inadvertantly to ill effect because they aren't informed of the myriad pharmacological subtleties that lie between the terms 'coffee substitute' and 'caffeine substitute'. Sometimes all the terms mean is that you're drinking something thats NOT coffee and could well contain caffeine anyhow

30 x 1000mg Nutralife tyrosine cost about $14 in my neck of the woods. May be cheaper online

My khat has just about finished flowering... it got the same fertiliser regime as all the other trees get ( ie seems to need no more special care than the rest) I threw a few handfuls of Dynamic Lifter around the base of the plant- I do this twice a year in Spring and Autumn. The soil they live in is very well drained, which I think helps. One of the khat 'shrubs' I have is fairly tall now so I presume it doesn't mind its life You may still be too far south for the soil to have warmed up to a temperature where yr khat is happy...my self seeded tomatoes are only now starting to pop up which is good sign of soil temperature here. nightnight Darklight

I haven't checked to see whether yr species is at this site, but here's the URL for Bamboo World http://ann.nrg.com.au/bamboo/ hope that helps cya DarkLight