T. ulmifolia

[apothecary]

Well. I ordered a Turnera ulmifolia cutting from darcy a while ago, and I put it in a pot as soon as it got here. It didn't grow very much, and at first I was concerned, but then I realised that was because it had already begun budding.

One of the first buds opened before my eyes today, while I was gardening, the flower is beautiful, check my blog for a pic.

Anyway. I had become quite impatient because of this budding, my main concern was consuming fresh foliage to determine if it was indeed as active as I had read, and the flowers were intefering with my plans.

I figured, screw it, one little leaf won't hurt, so I picked it. It smelt nothing like Damiana, but I stuck it in my mouth and chewed for a while then downed it anyway.

The fresh foliage is definitely active. I only had one leaf and I am feeling pretty altered, almost stoned. Almost stoned enough that if there were more leaves on the thing I'd go back and pick a few more.

Are the flowers active? I'm quite happy to go and eat that flower if the effects are the same as the leaf hehehe!

I am now considering pinching the buds off so the plant will grow more foliage, because I want more of that stuff!

Very interesting indeed. The stuff is good people.

[Happy Cadaver]

They will tend to die down in winter, they have a really great root system, so much so that you may find it popping up out of your garden bed, etc as they do have a great ability to sucker.

Tantra made a post a year or so ago and he found it to be as good in effect to Turnera diffusa for him. I reckon its got a wierd smell but you've got a fair bit of experience with real damiana so know what to look for. The flowers are probably the same, maybe nicer to eat....

[apothecary]

The stuff is rediculously good.

I seriously have spent the last hour or so completely distracted and unable to do any study.

I chewed it for a while before swallowing, did not notice any taste or smell at all :/

I am now torn between harvesting the flowers and making a fresh tincture (oh my I can just feel it now), or letting them grow so I can harvest seed and grow more plants. I'm not sure one will be enough for what I have in mind

This spells trouble, I can see myself going to work under the influence of this stuff every day. :D

Do you remember the first time you got stoned? You're toasted out of your brain sitting there going "am I stoned?".

That's what today was like for me. I haven't smoked any cheeba since last Thursday and haven't even had a cigarette today, so as I zoned back into reality a short while ago I realised how zonked I just was.

One thing of note is I experienced some jaw clenching, which from my understanding points to stimulant action.

I also need to explore the aphrodisiac effects more, but preliminary effects are promising.

Oh yeah, and who said we don't have a "stoned" emoticon? I feel exactly like this:

^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^

[Cyjack]

Whats the deal with this plant? Erowid says -

Damiana is used as a general tonic for the nervous, hormonal, and reproductive systems. It has an ancient reputation as an aphrodisiac. Some claim damiana tea has a relaxing effect not-unlike low doses of cannabis. Others argue that Damiana has no active ingredients, and that its medicinal reputation is based on damiana tonics from the late 1800s which were inactive, or contained enough alcohol and/or coca to produce unrelated effects.

I cant see this on SAB's list.....

[Happy Cadaver]

i've only found one seed pod on heaps of plants, best to separate any suckers that come up. Seeds look like the damiana ones u find in bags of herb, little kidneys.

Probably a tincture would be good. I think i may go out and chew a leaf ^_^

[apothecary]

Man you're lucky I'm not anywhere near your garden. I would've stripped my plants raw after that initial rush

Post results.

EDIT: You may just not have the appropriate pollinator insect, the flowers look very open and (relatively) simple, I think I will go out and moosh some pollen around and see if it achieves anything.

[Happy Cadaver]

perhaps a slight sense of well being, i had a slight headache before and now its gone. It has a hairy, mucilaginous taste. Not bad, would need more work as you say.

We used to have heaps of bees and night moths so I don't know, I reckon it needs cross-pollination, all these plants are clones. Good luck though!

[Rev]

If this is the same plant we collected darcy then theres a chance its a hybrid

i saw several cultivars of turnera sp for sale last year - should have bought them i guess...

i will get them all if i see them again

or use the aussie plant finder 2006

thats a great book!

well i dont know if they are hybrids or just large flowered selections but i think i found a small flowered weedy looking Turnera in brisbane and it looks quite different

all with the same 'wierd' smell

my turner went great till the frosts came. It was one of those that dont come back in spring :(tho it was supring to see how many and what does after being totally killed off to ground level for 3.5 months)

[Happy Cadaver]

yep that's the one we collected in Cairns rev. The closest thing i could find to it was Turnera ulmifolia var. subulata. I'm guessing someone has created a few varieties because of its ornamental value, they're pretty awesome flowers.

I have a pic of another Turnera from Germany BG, I think angustifolia, it had that weird smell too. do you have a pic of that turnera you found rev?

[Rev]

No not yet

i will get plants next time i go through brisbane

they are on a verge unattended and there are plenty of plants n suckers

[Caldeye]

We used to have heaps of bees and night moths so I don't know, I reckon it needs cross-pollination, all these plants are clones. Good luck though!

I have many seedlings all from a single plant (indoors, no bees:)), so it is self-fertile. It is not easy to gather any seed because the seed pods are always either unripe or already empty. But then you end up with seedlings all around.

I smoked dried leaves once and got a nice mellow intoxicating effect that lasted an hour or so.

[Happy Cadaver]

did you grow the seedlings from seed you collected, or did they pop up in the pot around the motherplant? I had some little shoots pop up too (around motherplant) and thought they were seedlings, but they were actually root suckers.

[Caldeye]

They popped up not only in the motherplant's pot, but in all other pots near it (with San Pedro &

other plants). Definitely not suckers.

I've also grown some from the seed that I collected by chance. Sometimes a seed or two stays in the open seed capsule, but others are thrown all about when the capsule bursts, and soon after that it drops off itself. If the plants are outside, the wind will do that even faster.

Check the leaves just below the flowers, you may find some unripe seed pods and bag them before they burst.

[Happy Cadaver]

Did you find any variation in flower colour, etc with the seedlings?

[Caldeye]

most of them haven't flowered yet. They are way slower than cuttings.

thanks for the tip, I'll look for any variations.

BTW, it is of some other variety than apothecary's, the flowers are pure yellow. It has a strange smell when fresh, like crushed tomato leaves.

[apothecary]

Pure yellow? Like that?

[Conan Troutman]

hhmm..pure yellow, sounds interesting

I want some :D

[Caldeye]

here's a pic (somewhat blurry, sorry)

hellofromthegutter, I don't have any seed at hand ATM, but I'll start collecting it, and then - welcome for a trade:)

[Torsten]

so, what species is that? It looks like halfway between diffusa and ulmifolia.

[Caldeye]

so, what species is that? It looks like halfway between diffusa and ulmifolia.

I suppose there may be some natural variation in the shape of leaves and flowers in this species.

There are pics of commoner narrow-leaf plants like this:

and specimens with shorter/broader leaves like mine or this one:

or this one from Israel:

What about the plants with black centered flowers, like the apothecary's? There is a species, Turnera subulata, that always has flowers of that type, while most of ulmifolias are just yellow

[woof woof woof]

Turnera Diffusa? Why are the seeds so hard to find?