JumpedAngel

it was no big deal wd, it was actually done free hand, that is I didnt even put a peg in the groud to help locate the spot. Its a new digital camera that Ive been trying to sus-out before going seriously bush with it in a couple of months time. but there were about three clumps in the front yard and i did it to each of them over about ten days, then there were some singularly brilliant shots, I've named the one below "thats torn it" editing and sizing was done by eye on a cheat freeby adobe poto-delux package

selected shots from ten days at 1 shot per day, as i said, its been dry around here.

yeah right, the mistake i made was that i went out there looking for a bush of that shape and that density and in that open kind of environment, and i pushed it to the limit and eventually got lost and burnt. eventually when i found the plant it was in the shade of medium sized gum trees in dense scrub, there appeared to be a relationship between these gum trees and the bushes as there were some nine bushes closely by about four or five trees, the shape of the bush was that of a slender pine and the foliage desity was so light that the bushes themselves were only visible from close by as otherwise they become lost in the background.

I have the book in front of me as i write this and let me repeat, the photo on pp196-197 is correct, the one on p194 is NOT. The shape of the plant is totaly wrong and the density of available herbage is again very misleading, short of blowing the photo up and examining it under the microscope all I can say is that it may well be a set-up photo much like the one on page 33 of les hiddins bush tucker field guide, the fact is that due to the quality of the photo, I cant prove that it isnt and he wouldnt be able to prove that it is.

while researching bay-rum and the distillation of bay-oil a while ago I came across a bit of info which might be of help to you bloodbob, in fact I would be trying this one out for myself if it were legal. quote: "Cask rum is often used to blend with various herbs and spices to produce some potent mixtures. This is 'spice'. Indeed, any herb or spice might do, but popular local additions are cinnamon or rosemary. Then there is the infamous 'bois bandé'. Medically proven to induce a state of how shall we put it, tumescence, several cases a year are reported in countries like Trinidad where unfortunates are unable to 'get it down'. In Dominica, it's illegal to take the bark from the bois bandé tree, though whether that to protect the tree or the individual I'm not sure. Spice In Dominica, 'spice' is the generic name given to any rum to which a local herb or spice has been added and allowed to impart its particular flavour. The most common 'spiced' rums are: spice which has had Cinnamon added nannie which is Rosemary l'apsent which is absinthe/aniseed pueve which is creole for 'pepper' Spice is an acquired taste, best drunk in one go... " For my money it would not make that much difference weather one were to use wormwood or sage, infact I am familiar with a gnome who has done it with the infamous duboisia hopwoodii (pituri), this is not said to be a pleasant drink, something akin to drinking pure nicotine in flavour, I think the trick might be to drink it quickly (in one go). more details should be available on the following site:- http://www.avirtualdominica.com/rum.htm#spice

Hey Ed, many thanks for the cuttings, will pm you soon. Hum. - There are many variations on fermentation, you can ferment the same thing in different ways to end up with different products, grapes is an easy one, ferment it in air and you get vinegar, ferment without air and you get wine, with molasses, ferment it in air and you get rust converter (butyric acid and acetone), ferment without air and you get rum. This explanation is a little over simplified but you might be getting the idea now. The other variable is the type of bacteria used to digest the starting materials, with the above procedures reying mostly on native or wild bacteria present on the starting material or in the air (aerobactors). Other fermentations can rely on specially bred bacteria such as for champagne making. Scelentium fermentation is a technique borrowed from the San tribsmen of S Africa (I think), originally the plant was bruised and sewn up inside a pigs bladder or some such thing restricting the access to oxygen, nowadays we simply crush and bruise the plant matter and stick it inside of a zip lock bag with a little air. Fermentation proceeds as a result of the wild bacteria present inside the bag, the bag is opened regularly (once every day or so) to allow the beast a little more oxygen, otherwise it may die and putrify. The bag is left in a warm place (the window sill or inside the car) to give it the heat it needs for optimum conversion. The stuff is then placed on a tray or plate to dry in a shady place, and when it has dried it can be ground in a coffe grinder to a fine powder for use as a snuff or snort. I have found that many people ask questions about this type of fermentation as it is unfamiliar to them but if you do a search on the web or on this site you will find many interesting fermentation topics.

In the past I've owned some peyote and san pedro, I loved my peyote too much to eat him, he was large and valuable back in those days when you could still buy it at Gardenworld, and he dissapeared one day when I went away on holidays. San Pedro is still easy to get around here, I only tried to eat it once and found the effects to be very mild and the flavour totally disgusting (this obviously would benefit from some form of treatment). Yesterday, while cruising through my favorite trash and treasure market I spotted at least a dozen large plants which I took to be sceletium, not being any sort of expert I bought a couple (only difference appears to be the colour of the flower), I was about to giv'em the "Planthelper" fermentation treatment when I noticed a heap of pods, old and new and then decided to hold off until. 1) I can confirm that they are of a type which will be of some use when exposed to fermentation treatment (i.d. please ed). 2) Confirm weather to hold off until all the immature pods dry out (if they are usefull) As I don't actually own any webspace real-estate of my own I cannot give a UBB code link to an image other than an index page where I have placed a link to some photos (free webspace has its limitations)(look for the sceletium link), so if you have the time then please let me know your thoughts to the above points. :confused: P.S. Please dont take the web page too seriously as it still hasn't decided what it wants to become.

I'm no expert on fungi, and what little I read came from many years ago and I can't even give you the source, but the way that I learned it was that fungal spores can live in the same realms as aerobactors ie. in the air (at least quite often), high altitude atmospheric research has shown that many fungal spore types can be found high in the atmosphere and hence they span the earth or at least make regular intercontinental travel. If you can accept the above then it is not the europeans who brought the spores in (at least not neccessarily), the theory goes that if u create the right micro climate then eventually a spore of the appropriate fungus will fall there and grow. For example, I didn't have to plant the fly in the front yard just the pine tree that it lives on. Looking at fungus in this way can help you to understand global distributions. Being a bush survival freak, I have been wanting to review a few of the ABRS's. but havn't had the chance to take a look yet, has anyone here had a look at them yet? and if so, what is your verdict? (I too have been using the Oz field companion named above) http://www.anbg.gov.au/fungi/index.html

A few weeks ago at a local Trash & Treasure market my gnome spotted a number of interesting plants for sale, including one in particular as it had a square stem and a lovely blue flower almost like a mint, but with large ovate leaves. $2 is all the woman wanted for this plant but the gnome didn't know exactly what it was back then so he left it there, the woman had a name written down for it but it was nothing like sally d, and the gnome had not met sally before, but the thought has now occured, which is the real Sally D anyway?, is it the blue one shown by the Elmer. W. Smith image on the Vaults of Erowid site and which the gnome is quite sure he met with on that morning?, or is it the mauve/white one shown on the Yage site?, who feels brave enough to answer this for my gnome. http://www.erowid.org/plants/show_image.ph...um_drawing1.jpg http://azarius.yage.net/ My gnome feels concerned that two such seemingly credible sites should be at odds over something as significant as this, anyone have any ideas as to how this could have happened or have a reasonable explanation?, how can a newbie feel comfy with the information he/she gets from these sites when such discreptancies become obvious even to a relative amature?. It sould be said that since the initial contact two weeks ago, the gnome managed to meet up with the same plant again last weekend and this time had a camera handy.... There must have been at least 3 or 4 other, similar plants there also but different foliage and flower, can anyone point my gnome to the names of useful Sally types and also some better pictorial site to get an I.D. of what these look like, for example there is one in the garden that looks close to the one on the yage site but its leave are a different shape.... any help would be apreciated.

The gnome gnose OK, this should only be considered as an initial impression from a gnome who hasn't fooled around with ssri's before and who hasn't needed to, a more comprehensive assesment may come later, dunno?. Red, Pink and Yellow flowering varieties of sceletium succulent matter was bacterially digested or fermented in the traditional local manner, ie. in limited oxygen, inside of a zip-loc bag and under the action of native airborne species of aerobactor type yeast/bacteria/fungus. The gnome was fortunate to have recieved a sample of sceletium powder to use as a standard from "Herbalistics" (thanks Darcy), as best as the gnome was able to tell, this is a comercial blend of Sceletium and Justicia plants meant to give a synargistic effect, it is called Buzz Powder. :D Buzz Powder doesn't make any grandiose promises, only that it gives a stimulating effect if taken as a snuff. other sources, such the Maya web site suggest it could be smoked in the company of mary j with synargistic effects and still further, family related sources have suggested this plant was administed orally by an S.African San shamman to cure a last gasp flavour of cancer of the everything. It was therefore expected that the substance would be smokable, however, only nominal effects were observed from smoking the Red and the Buzz Powder on seperate occassions so that theory and experiment were discontinued. Two small lines were cut of the pink powder and snorted, immediate and intense stimulation followed, much like chlorine, and definietly remenisant of the gnomes upsa-daisy-um days, complete with the acrid after taste at the back of the throat and the impudent runny gnose. Similar experiences were noted in the following days with the yellow powder and the Buzz powder with at least one day of rest in between each trial, then the whole thing was repeated for all except the red variety, with all three, ie. the buzz, the pink and the yellow, each was snorted at least twice. The noted symptoms apart from the nasal irritation where a mild stimulant effect which was generally felt up to 6 hours and an intense sinus pain which lasted just as long, the pain was felt particularly along the left sinus, behind the left eye and behind the frontal lobe, although by the last trial the pains had much reduced in intensity as if some kind of tolerance level was coming down. The last trial made was on the red powder, and in this case, no effects were felt except nominal and a mild/medium case of sinus pain, it is therefore considered unproductive to continue snorting the red powder, otherwise, snorting trials will continue as the opportunity arises. It is hoped to try out the powders in tea as has been suggested in various bits of literature around the place, and this may happen during the next few weeks, then later combined with a number of possible synargins, but try to understand, it is now formally shroom season and the gnome is adamant about not mixing up his priorities or his trials. Hey mesc, it is supposed to smell and taste like shit anyway, after all that's what it is, it is the shit of some toxic little bug in the same family as the typhus bug and other nasty beasties, not quite sure if animal or veg. but have been using this same fermentaion technology for many years to make chelating agent (butyric acid) with acetone as a bi-product from molassas. That stuff Darcy mixes with it makes it smell less like shit but it is still shit. The gnomes final word is cautiously reserved for a more definative future but for the moment he says that he never expected to find these sorts of effects outside of the ephedra family, otherwise, the pink and yellow powder compare favourably to the comercial buzz powder, and only further research will determine the best blend.

Picture updates only, report coming soon...

Picture update only...

I understand that this one is smokeable? Can anyone fill me in on use, how ,when, etc. I think up north it is called tropical speedwell and down here in the south we have several varieties.

Hi Strangebrew It's an interesting question, my gnome first tried the fungus in the early to mid 70's and was reluctant to do even this as he had tried chem. acid a couple of dozen times and freaked out completely or at least got an unpleasant dose of the shakes every time, I suspect the first trip was responsible for this as it turned out to be a 4-way brown dot, It was inconsievable for him at that age and with so little experience that something so small could be so potent even 4 ways, let alone one way. Later, he was pleasantly surprised when he moved first on to the gold and blues and then on to the fly, his first experience with the golds and blues was an introduction from another gnome who was too mean to share his spots, but he had an interesting technique, he removed all the heads and threw them in the bin, then later pulled them out again to show my gnome that the heads were all full of maggots, he boiled 2 dozen stalks in about a pint of water and made tea from the strained water, even this didn't remove all the tiny maggots, my own gnome has progressed from these early days and now treats all shrooms the same way, they are all dried above the central heating duct overnight then filed away in a glass cave or consumed the next day. I've never seen maggots on the fly but I have seen bird/possum/rat? :confused: damage, we don't get roos in the burbs, as for the golds and blues, I think most of the tall slender varieties like the subs have maggot varieties that go with them, I think they could be something like a fruit fly, however, there was a variety of thick stemmed stumpy blues/blacks that I found around East Gippsland which never showed any insect damage at all, the idea might be not to look at them as maggots but more as the sort of worm you take with a decent shot of tequilla.

I can understand how you might feel about alcohol, I know I was allergic to it till my early twenties, I've also seen so many young people stuff themselves up by mixing it with mj and other stuff, but if I had to live without my herbal drinks (unicum, underberg and jagermeister) then I would probobly go illegal.

Quote from someplace else.... quote: The red sceletium muck has finally dried, and I hope to get the gnome to test it for me, the pink and yellow scelitium muck has not dried yet, and the pink sceletium cuttings are not showing signs of rooting yet (too cold i think), I can now see why Mr Planthelper prepares it by the bucketload as the quantity is dissapointing, the pink and yellow will only end up providing test samples I think. I will revisit and update the thead "beggining with sceletium" once the gnome has had the opportunity to find his way around some of this stuff, don't hold your breath, he still hasn't looked up ssri, he has been very bussy looking at software (aspen,lisp) As you may know, the gnome recently (2 months) gave up tobacco after approx 35 years with the aid of pituri, ..... , interestingly, the tobacco addiction is now gone, this is made amply obvious when he comes in contact with second hand tobacco smoke, the smoking addiction is still there and when the pituri ran out he went straight on with a convolvulus erubescens or convolvulus sabatius or something that looks like that, the bush medecine book calls it beach convulvus or tropical speedwell, apparently there are about 9 varieties at one of the local mountain ranges (grampians) there is a big patch of it in the back yard. The smoking habit is now far reduced, and the main reason it is maintained at all is to force the gnome away from the computer at least once every 4 or 5 hours, whoever thought smoking might actually be good for you?. Because the speedwell stuff is at least mildly narcotic (with the occassional spinout), the gnome expects to find difficulty in determining the effect of the red sceletium for now, and may be forced down the road for a snort of the snuff, but its still very much early days and I think he may want the pink and yellow stuff on hand as well for a comparison. .....

quote: You know nothing of our work and yet you insist on attacking my motives in every one of your postsI've obviously hurt your feelings and I appologize for that. although I thought there was a bit of give and take going on with that. I think it is difficult to do any work and not feel concerned about losing control of it. Thanks for letting me pick your brain.

There may have been one or two difficult aspects to earning your Kadaicha shoes in past times, if you were sitting on a begnin pituri patch for example you may still find you need to set the example and point the bone sometimes in order to maintain control, this may have been part and parcel for your initiation, you may have kept an eye on your patch and then deliberately poisoned the occasional plant to help you prove your point, so to speak (pardon the pun), from there on nothing would travel faster or more effectively than that genuine fear spread through gossip and rumour down the pituri trail. Feedback comes naturally from your distributors, of course you're going to know where your product trades are falling off, especially if you were deliberately targeting that new axe or shell to trade-on for something else from a particular region. Interestingly, I understand that there was a nearby region where human skulls were fashioned into drinking vessels, having been first sealed up and decorated with bits of shell and stone and weapons grade acacia resin (decapitation? why does that sound so familiar, I'd settle for their testicles if it was my patch), this may give you some idea as to why one culture might feel they need to control another culture too (would you want these people to be one and the same?, if not then you would need to learn how to maintain absolute discretion to maintain absolute control). It is thought by some (A.P.Elkin for one) that the religous landscape was trapped or frozen in a state of flux when whitey trickster arrived though you seldom see more difference than these two groups sitting side by side. quote: "Sure, and discoveries like the different effects of varying harmala alkaloids in caapi show us just how easily we can go wrong. But often the simple answer isn't too far from the truth, and given that nicotine certainly fits the bill of the accounts given of high dosage pituri use (and happens to be the major alkaoid in the right pituri strains), it is the best case scenario to work from." I know abso-possa-fucka-lutely nothin about b.caapi (tried cactus, more so mr somahead), when in my late teens, had a humungus religous experience while under the influence, but it wasn't some sacred fungus or cactus or some other revalatory or devinatory ethnogen it was the humble carbon tetrachloride plant straight out of the can (an unhappy accident). The inscesant search that followed for years after that initial revelation saw me making spitefull accusations at a dear old girl after a ritual in my early twenties, claiming that she had spiked the inscence with drugs in order to manipulate my mind and wallet, and how humiliating for me when I went home and found the whole journey could be repeated at will from that time on. The theory from the natural school of thought is interesting, it suggests that these chemicals of themselves may be largely irrelavent or fit broadly into categories only, and that it is only the secretion from the chakra/gland/psycic-centre which is felt by the consciousness/mind and not the chemical/poison which externally provoked the chakra/gland/psycic-centre in the first place, that is why one chemical might give you only a slightly different stone to a completely different chemical, the natural school of thought is said to work toward the control of these natural secretions at will rather than provoking them with poisons, however, this in itself also ends up becomeing a complete red herring when mis-used or over-used when you finally realize that you were not put here on this earth to merely subsist with your head in the clouds, and that in so doing you fulfill no useful purpose but instead it becomes yet one more form of mental masturbation, you must instead learn respect for the process and learn how to use it only when you need illumination or inspiration treating it as sacred knowledge. quote: * pharmacology - Two Duboisia spp are already major australian export industries.Things must have changed "recently", pardon my ignorance but WHAT Duboisia spp. is going WHERE and for what purpose?, this isnt just that stolen plant being used for sea-sickness is it? quote: * preparation - study and analyse the changes caused by various preparation methods.This is an interesting aspect, how many different ways are there to mix flour and water in a kitchen? quote: Boohoo...I feel every individual is responsible for their own actions and if someone gets addicted to nicotine then that's their problem.Interesting thought (...tomorow dze verldt?), there couldn't possibly be a cultural issue at stake here, does this include ignorant children or are they also responsible for your profits, I mean their actions?

Have you ever gone to the toilet straight after handleing this stuff???? no known antidote!!!!

All we need is a decent downpour and I may be forced to mount an expedition into the front yard for that illusive soma fungushead. truely we were promised rain for almost the entire week and all we got was an hour or so of light drizzle.

In my traditional culinary background sometimes a certain cucumber chemo-types is prepared in an unusual fermentation process, it never ceases to amaze me how delectible this preperation can be or alternately how bad the result if it was the wrong cucumber, the italian baked capsicum recipe is another example, do it to a green, yellow, or white capsicum and you end up eating shit, do it to a red capsicum and it is heavenly, again this brings to mind the memory that pituri was also cured or treated in some special way, what do you know of that?. quote: [bOLD]There rarely is logic in addiction. And lets face it these guys were/are addicted. Which makes the argument that they would have (at least secretly) consumed the material from other regions if it was palatable (by their standards) even stronger.[/bOLD]When you say stuff like this I trip out and visualize myself as a crusty old Kadaicha who has spotted a young bucks tracks near some plants that he controls, and having now understood his intent, has the grim but delicate task ahead to set the buck up to look like a transgressor of traditional law and to punish him in a way that will reinforce the established belief systems and maintain the traditional controls over the tribe and the broader community being mindful that this is the centre of control for a huge overland network radiating out from the heart of the country this being in itself of penultimate importance. If many of the pituri chemo-types are already toxic or poisonous and the secret to the manipulation of the plant is actually in the preparation then the Kadaicha may be spared his grim duty, merely allowing nature to take its course and reinforcing superstitions verbally by acurately predicting symptoms to the criminals transgressions or faining that he has stolen the criminals kidney fat or some other ju-ju bullshit like that. I have sailed through the past few decades accepting that we honestly don't know exactly which chem. or combination is responsible for the activites of several plant substances including pituri and I kind of aggree there is a case for studies of the sort you propose but then again I am in two minds as I'm not entirely sure that it really matters, what are you looking for?, do you want to domesticate the plant and produce a breed specificaly selected and cultivated on the basis of your idea of the most acceptable poisons contained therein? do you want to reclaim lost knowledge? are you prepared to decide for us or dictate to us which is the most acceptable poison that the plant should manufacture? and are you willing to assume responsibility for those decision that you make? I think you said you like a large hit of nicotine? what if you find that Mr Piturihead doesn't behave like Mr Nicotinehead, do you think you will be able to unload him?. (Ohh Also my gnome has reminded me that the biggest nicotine hit he ever had was from drinking gin that had pituri soaking in it for about a month but can't make comparissons as he has never tried chimmo.) These high tech. methods and speculations you propose may actually yield meaningless un-translatable results, they might even loose the original spirit of the plant or perhaps they may bring on some unforseen disaster, I believe bioassays often present a valuable data set, this was brought home to me in the past when I observed how much fun a number of gnomes and gnomlettes were having on one particular occassion yet this is often forgotten as my own crusty old gnome barely ever cracks a smile. I know its very much cliche, and especially so around here but I can never forget that tacky old line "....everything is poison....nothing is poison"

your quote quote: "Anyway, if you apply some logic you may not need the pharmacology results.... why do you think pituri was traded thousands of kilometers into districts that have their own Duboisia hopwoodii if it wasn't special (ie non-toxic)?"Heresay evidence is just that, and although I do not wish to cast aspersions on your good character or anyone elses I still prefer to subscribe to the suck-it-and-see school of logic, particularly as this plant seems to be protected by the "brother" network (this would be an autocrcy, meaning that only the people at its very pinnacle actually know what is going on) with any number of misleading claims and photographs turning up wherever the plant is mentioned. Having a strong Finno-Ugrian birth heritage and a seven year stint in south america as well as many travels to shit laden mosquito infested swamps all over the world, I have had the opportunity to examine all manner of cultural foilbles, superstitions and aberations. I can't tell you why the stuff was traded so far and wide for certain, I am lead to believe that the plant was protected even from the younger men of a controlling tribe, (apparently your beard had to have turned white before you were eligible to learn these secrets) how else do you protect such a secret except through mis-information, fear and superstition?, telling someone that the stuff is toxic for example, and if this works locally then why wouldn't it work thousands of kilometers away?, have you considered that these may have actually been the wise-guys of the aboriginal race?. Have you ever tried making a green stone axe from scratch, these things are absolute treasures and take ages to make and grind an edge on, yet if a (two week supply) bag of weed was dropped on the ground even this was handed over without question, buddy there is no logic to it. as far as aboriginal culture is concerned, I am aware that it has continued evolving albeit in a different stream but the old stories no longer seem to be fully understandable nor do I believe that they were ever really interpretable into a western mindset, something as simple as boiling water for example, almost every local indigenous group lays cultural claim to the ability to boil water, however not one shows an example of a vessel construction for boiling the water in, unlike in northern climes where large shells were used, down south there is scant evidence of even traded shells and certainly nothing in terms of baked clay technology, not even in the local clay-pans where high-heat technology does appear to have been practiced. My over-riding concern for some time has been the survival education of the australian population, each week you hear of some lost soul or mishap when in real terms everyone here should have been taught at least short term survival skills by the time they reach primary school, although short term survival skills don't take much know-how, where can you point and say, oh look there is an indigenous group passing on some real, practical, simple, easy-to-remember knowledge?, but you are prepared to point to the esoteric stuff and say ohh I "believe" that. I don't pretend to have done much real research or to be any sort of pituri connoiseur, as stated, I dislike the flavour, other than to have located a rare plant in one patch (not too far from where you're going), anyway I think the issue is more about what some of us are prepared to "believe". I know I've probobly given you the shits with the survival advice already but here is another little suppository for ya :D , the red sands are iron bearing, these are thought to be sometimes quite deep "wind deposited soils" and as such may or may not be magnetic, also, I can't remember where we are with the 11 year solar flare cycle, these can play havoc with sat. phones and GPSs. do a search on sun spot activity before you go, I'm glad you have some PEB's, I wouldn't have been too proud to take one if they had been readily available back then. I think those two clowns in the middle of lake ayre probobly had one although as you can see, the fresh comm. equipment that was dropped to them from the helicopter doesn't seem to have worked. your quote quote: "Luckily these days one can be prepared with several back up methods (got a GPS too). But most important of all one needs to use common and natural sense (eg memorise landmarks etc)." Hope to god you don't try to get by on memorising landmarks, thats how I got lost, the one outstanding feature of our deserts is their "featurelessness", add to this a patch of compacted magetic gravel to hinder tracking skills and electronic equipment, crank the temperature up till the ground all around you starts to shimmer and add some mindblowingly potent psycodelic desert colours to spin your head around, and you already start to wonder where this world ends and the next one beggins.

Just a quick response, I have an app. to fix up. If you want photos, leave it go for Sept-Oct. It was Oct for me and the thing was in flower with green and black berries showing, I was going to mention that it may be near impossible to id if not in flower especially with the misleading photos from T.Low and L.Hiddins.

Hi Torston For me pituri = D. hopwoodii, it is only quite recently that I have become aware that some folks refer to other plants by the name pituri. It was still only the one plant many years ago when I handed in Melbourne Museum's first ever sample for that species. When I say a resurgence in interest I am probobly using a different cronology to you, how long has this chat-room been on the web 4 maybe 5 years?, no insult intended the fact is I really don't know, but for me this is still easily covered with the word recent, I refer to my IT study/qualifications as recent and these cover the same stretch of time, The original design drawings for the CMTS (Cellular Mobile Telephone System) towers bear my initials as the originating design draftsman, and despite the fact that I drew them some years before going out into the desert for the first time, it would still not surprise me greatly if much of that patch of desert is still outside the scope of the system today, leave your cell phone behind and take a cb or sat. phone instead, the problem is these are still not very portable and by the Seventh day of lugging it around you will definitely need a rest, that is if you can keep them charged and working properly, a better option is a PEB (Personal Emergency Beacon) you can get one reasonably cheap these days ($100 maybe) The problem with the desert is that once you have lost sight of the car it is all over if you dont know how to navigate, follow your own footsteps back if you can, although this won't always be possible, I had some 20 years tracking experience down south (deerstalker) when it happened to me and I couldn't do it despite having been very proud of some of my former tracking achievments. I can not fathom how you came to the conclusion that there are specific chemo-types for the plant, I don't believe such a generalised statement can be made without some research backing it up and to the best of my knowledge this has not happened yet, How many varieties have you tried? how many samples have you had access to? (dont tell me what others have "told" you, I don't want to know). I can accept that like some plants or fungi there may be seasonal or localized variability to its potency but am not willing to accept that one localized source will yield an alkaloid different to all others until I have made that personal comparison for myself, this supposed "toxic" varity you have at times alluded to was well received by the local gnome who recently cured himself of a 35 year tobacco smoking habit with it, I think I have probobly poo pood it a bit much on the basis of its flavour alone, then again there are few native foods or flavours that I have come across which I would care to remember with any great fondness (ahh there was that native lime...). Going out there without a compass sounds a bit idealistic and probobly a bit stupid, or was it?, can you trust your compass? what about when it is affected by things that you can not see, I failed a test hike once because I wasn't aware of the magetic variation caused by the high iron-ore deposits in the ground, I have since idealised native methods of navigation and direction finding and forced myself to learn these and rely primarily upon them, it was still stupid because I could have been out there for up to another 24 hours before I got sight of a shadow or the night sky to give me a bearing. A compass can be great, a GPS can also be excellent, as is a satelite phone but only for so long as they do their job or don't mislead you, but if you don't know how to navigate and your instruments give you incorrect data or the battery has gone flat then you are reeeelly fucked, it is always handy not only to have a plan b but also to know how it works, being the sort of person who insists on going out there on his own, there has rarely been anyone else that I could have depended upon anyway. Anyway, when are you going? I hope you have a pleasant/successful trip, as you have probobly guessed I have formed my own very definite ideas about this plant and even after so many years it still spins me out just thinking about it, I have come across one or two cultivation attempts with absolutely zero success rates thus far, I guess the person who cracks the secret will be the one who controls the trade heh heh:D

I was forced to rekindled my knowledge of ethnobotony in general recently when I began building a website dealing (supposedly) with bush survival, during my searching for additional information I became aware of this and other similar chatrooms/web-communities, this is quite new to me and when I was out hunting pituri in the desert almost 20 years ago, speculation of a facility such as this or even the ability to purchase cacti and other ethnobotanic herbs on-line might have been considered fanciful at best. Unfortunately I did not find the site in time to be able to attend EB3, or to see what Henry provided in terms of samples or the talk that he gave, and unfortunately this event was not recorded or preserved for the benefit of others to learn from, I have noted a resurgence of interest in the herb since the event and have noted a number of requests for a supply of the herb, unfortunately I can not help by providing it either and am almost certain that such will not be available anywhere for at least another 20 years. With a cool head and lots of time to think about it I dusted off the old calculator and quickly determined that a regular user might go through 100 plants in a year!!!, having only ever seen 9 of them, and this being after intensive searching on-foot, I believe that 100 plants may equate to an entire region of plants, a heavy user might use much more. I am dismayed by the fact that both published photographs of the bush that I have seen appear to be grossly inacurate and misleading particularly where the actual amount of available foliage on the plant is concerned, as the actual amount of plant matter recovered from one complete plant once dried and crushed is only about the quantity that might fit into a 2 ounce tobacco pouch. Even today when native stocks have had the opportunity to recover from countless centuries of intensive and relentless traditional plunder, this plant still remains rare, the truth you MUST face is that even if you do one day crack the secrets of its cultivation, you will need to also set aside many acres per each person that you want to be able to supply, and this equates to a very hard ask if it turns out to be a plant with special symbiotic requirments as I susspect it to be, you must be able to see the bottom line, this is one plant that you can't place a realistic value on, and I believe it will remain in the realms of mythology for years to come. Asking someone to supply you is also a difficult proposition if you consider the implications legal and otherwise, I know for a fact that it will cost me $300 in fuel alone just to get to the point where I will start looking and return home again, I expect to spend this much again for fuel and many days driving and walking in the actual search, incidently the greatest danger out there is not Mr Ranger or Mr Farmer as I doubt that you will ever see either, It is Mr redneck pigshooter and please believe me when I say to you that you do not want to look trendy out there unless you aspire to becoming a stylish target. It is inhospitable country, that is true, personally I found it more difficult trying to get by up in the Daintree, (except for the one time I got lost), Burke by name Burke by nature what else can you say about the man, when you compare his map making and navigational achievements to someone like Cook you soon see where the problem was, anyone else might have made a success out of that expedition. At the risk of sounding politically incorrect I would like to say that laying claim to cultural/traditional knowledge of the plant is one thing, claiming ownership of the plant species itself is a completely different matter, you can no more own a species of plant than you can own a chemical element, I'm sure you would not be impressed if some mexican chappy came along making demands on your cactus garden or cactus knowledge etc. I have found pituri outside of channel country, this being the south east stoney desert, I also believe it occurs up in the north east simpson desert, I would not be surprised to find it in at least one of the victorian deserts or even the mallee in general, and will eventually look into that also, as for feeling guilty about harvesting some, well, all I can say is how I feel is my concern, I'm sure none of you will loose much sleep worrying about harvesting an endangered acacia or even a native mushroom :D . The point is this, any which way you look at this plant it remains economically un-viable, you can not aspire to harvest it sustainably/profitably from the wild, you can not aspire to own enough land to be able to cultivate a viable/commercial quantity, and you can not even guarantee yourself a regular supply for personal use. So what is the interest for me?, for me it remains that inspiration which first compelled me to go walkabout without a compass in one of the worlds harshest desert environments, with my testicles in one hand and my life in the other and the certain knowledge that I will only ever find the truth if I seek it first hand, I took a chance and passed my initiation, be certain that you are up to it before you make the attempt.