mauve

Anyone knows about it ? It is used in muslim countries and is supposed to be more efficient than modern toothpaste for whitening the teeth... I just bough one twig today and one toothpaste ("siwak-f") in a moroccan grocery. I hope it works ! The taste is not very strong and not bad. The funny thing is that, after a little chewing, the fibers of the twig have a brush-like form, very convenient. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miswak it is made from Salvadora persica branches: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvadora_persica

Happy birthday PlantHelper !!! May the plants return the help to our favorite grumpy old man !

Thank you for the pics, Kada ! I love seeing mature kratom trees, now i don't fear overwatering

It has been identified as Mimosa Verrucosa on SAB forum, but not 100 % sure. seedlings under a 400 HPS light

Woodruf (Galium odoratum) is quite nice too, it makes a nice sedating tea ! Very strong smell and easy to grow but i don't know if it is present in Australia.

You don't have to drink two litres of kava to feel the relaxing effects and the euphoria of kava...but it depends of the freshness and quality of your kava. I usualy drink no more than two cups of liquid in one setting (but i'm a lightweight).

Thank you planthelper ! Now that i've settled in a proper climate i'm going to go crazy on gardening !

Be careful, there are a lot of toxins in this familly ! The fruits are heavenly however.

Welcome back ! Thank you again for the mouth watering pictures and threads !

Just bumping this thread with pictures of my Acacia confusa seedlings It germinated very easily and it's growing well so far.

I have this book too ! It is my treasure !!! It would be quite a big work to scan this, it is a big book and the pages are of a big format, too big for my scanner lol

I did used my imagination and imagined a little test yesterday with some okinawan grown Acacia confusa phyllodes. In imagination, i cooked 10gr of fresh phyllodes (not even an handfull) in an well aerated area (in case of cyanide present in those leaves). It resulted in a nice red coloured brew that i mixed with a light caapi tea. The caapi tea is very light (maybe 3gr), not enough to have effects unless taken everyday for cumulative effects. I was clear of any caapi in my system this day. I drink the brew (no taste to write home about) and went to bed. Effects noticed: beautiful closed eyes visuals of spining coloured machines, organic structures and intriguing flowers. I noticed a slight nausea that went away quickly. The visions flowed very easily, more so than when just entering the hypnagogic stage sober. Then i had a good sleep with many realistic dreams (i've eaten of one the best tasting fruit in my life in one of those dreams ). Waking up in the morning was difficult. It is too early to make any conclusions based on this test but those phyllodes seemed active to me. Or: -It could be placebo (i never had so intricate CEV from placebo but it is still a possibility). -It could be the caapi (i never have CEV from a so light bark tea and i already tested this bottle the month before. Usualy if i have CEV from a light caapi infusion, it's from the leaves, not the bark wich has a different alkaloid profile.) But it is a possibility, Ayahuasca is such a mysterious one.) -Or it could be that the Ayahuasca allowed interaction between me and the Acacia confusa with even needing sufficient amount of tryptamines. After all it is one of the uses of Ayahuasca: to be introduced to other plants. By the way, i am usualy very sensitive to tryptamines and don't need high dosages to feel any activity. What a strange dream, i'm wondering why i imagined all that Here is a picture of the phyllodes that would have been used for the hypothetical experiment:

My gf and i saw the lunar eclipse as well, here in Japan. It felt eerie but a little bit frightening at first since we didn't knew that there was an eclipse to come ! We live in a magical world.

Kadakuda: no idea, realy, for me it looked like roots but for what i know it could have been the symbiotic fungus...

I've had the same phenomenon on a Rivea plant that was in a very humid location in the house. I'm sure there is no harm, the plant is just enjoying the humidity ?

The baffling fact, about the issue of whale eating in Japan, is that japanese don't even consider whale meat to be good tasting or anything special...in fact, for them, it is linked with school lunch menu ! For years i have asked a lot of people in Japan if they liked the taste of whale, i've nerver had one positive answer: they all think it's not very good. I'm sure that it is the whale fishers and whale fishing industry that are puting pressure to keep on fishing because as for the general population they don't care much about this meat at all. Another puzzling thing is the issue of Mediteranean tuna. Here in Europe we are in a big mess: the specie is going extinct, the fishers want to keep fishing because they can't imagine doing another thing in life and japan government puts a lot of pressure on keeping this catastrophic situation...but this year, when i arrived in Japan i was extremely surprised to discover that, in fact, mediteranean tuna is considered as "inferior grade" ! Japanese are madly passionate with cooking and eating, it's an incredible cultural thing. The japanese cooking is one of the most delicate and rich in the world...the negative side of this is that japanese people would never stop eating a fish (or any other animal/plant) that is on the verge of extinction if this fish tastes good. They can't be reasonable on this issue, it would be like asking a politician to stop thinking about his election/reelection.

I'm using the tek provided by an oldie (i think his nick name was "buddha" lol), it's very simple yet not so easy to achieve: -shut up the voice in your head (i do this by relaxing my grip, it's like letting go instead of trying to do something) -focus on this (you can choose): your breathing, the sound around you or in you, what you see, what you smell, what you feel (with the skin for example), etc -smile (mysteriously). This one is very important in my opinion and always overlooked. I don't remember having read that buddha ever said that you have to smile but it definitively propels the experience in a good direction...and after all it's on all the buddha statues hehe. I think that you can experience the first stages of meditative states in two ways: a cold, detached one, you are just experiencing, you just ARE. Or you can do the same thing smiling, you just ARE but in the same time you are connected to everything and you feel so good...smiling becomes a result of your meditation not a step. One important point in my practice is that i don't limit meditation to a special moment, place (for example when sitting in lotus). What i do is meditation in action: when walking, working, doing the laundry, listening to music, etc. In fact when you let go of the inner dialog and can just BE you experience life in a very large way. You don't even need to attain long moments of inner silence to reach a point of paradise on Earth: i discovered that when you accumulate enough of those littles "inner silence moments" (even a phew seconds meditations sessions accumulated) you arrive to a state of mind that is at first like the experience of Kratom: stimulated, relaxed, blissful and very imaginative etc. The trick is just to remember to meditate and to keep at it, grasping some precious seconds of inner silence from time to time but regulary during the day. When you dicover this it's awesome: everything is new again, you'll be trying everything like it's the first time (making love within this state is crazy !)... Again, i'm sorry for my difficulties to explain this in a clear way, i just hope i doesn't look too "new-agey" lol

It is very useful actualy (at last imo). When you meditate a little bit daily you become more acustomed to stop the flow of thoughs in your head. To be able to "not think" during an intense experience is priceless: you don't become dominated by emotions like fear and anger, you can look at those emotions as they arise in you and then leave your body without taking you in a ride. In the same time, the state of pure attention that you attain when meditating makes the trance deeper and allows you to be more aware of what going on in you, you are more availlable for any insight from the ally/substance. My english is too limited for explaining this clearly

It looks like it but i'm an Acacia noob some i can't identify for sure. I went collecting some seeds today, Acacia confusa is widely used as a landscaping tree here in Okinawa and i have a lot peacefuly growing in my neighborood. It is definately a very handsome tree ! I wish i had a camera, i'll try to borrow one to take some pictures later. It felt so good just stay under it, gazing at the beautiful pattern of the foilage... The tree i gathered seeds from is properly labelled (ソウシジュ=Acacia confusa in Okinawan language) so i am 100% i have the real thing. It was healthy, flowering and producing lots of pods, there are a lot more that will mature later. Now i have to study how to germinate/grow acacias...this will be my first try with them. I am wondering if there were some traditional use of this tree in Okinawa, the local "religion" is shamanism (usualy leaded by women, by the way wich is extremely rare worldwide). Since this acacia is active in tea form without maoi and extremely strong, it would be weird that it stayed unoticed all this time...

Great post The Dude ! All those recents dramas with Mutant vs "believers" do look like a arguing of the left brain vs the right brain haha

Happy birthday Torsten !!!

In my experience Rivea produced one seed per pod.

Happy birthday Planthelper !!!

I don't know the taste of the plant you mentioned but Gotu Kola's taste is nice, reminds me of raw carrot with a spicy aftertaste. I did feel good everytime i've munched on it but it is too early for me to draw any conclusion on this herb's activity: i'm waiting for my balcony grown Gotu Kola to be well established before further harvesting it is definitively a very cute herb to have around, in little pots and it makes a cool plant in a glass of water for decorating the home (it grows in plain water too as it is semi-aquatic). Yes, it is crazy the amount of invasive weeds introduced in those china sea islands, there are tons of morning glories and others in Okinawa too...difficult for me to understand wich ones are natives or not.

It warms my heart to see that there are people caring for frogs...we need more frogs, we want them back ! Good job !