L. diffusa

[blangschpeer]

I have a friend who's going through a bit of a personal crisis who's been told of the wonders and personal growth that can be achieved via the speaking to of the diffusa. He's left it in my hands to find out all I can on the traditional use of such cactus.

Just wondering if anyone can give me any guidelines on the use of diffusas or any past experiences (preferably with doses and ages of the ingested organism).

Where my friend lives it is legal to consume, he just wants me to do a bit of the ground work for him before he takes the bullet so to speak...

Any contributions would be appreciated, I've suggested other things but he just wont budge (I guess if you get the calling............)

[blangschpeer]

I'm guessing noone's had any experience then. It is one of the more uncommon ones

[gerbil]

the conservation status of diffusa is more of an issue than williamsii so i doubt you'd get people trying to promote their use even under conditions of cultivation.

Not being rude, but there are much better alternatives out there. Also again not meaning to be rude but I find it hard to believe someone can get the calling from a plant they know near on nothing about. Best of luck with your friend. Personal crisis can be overcome in a huge amount of ways, and if plants are on the mind without being able to budge them from that then diffusa really is not an ethically feasible option IMO.

Take care mate

[The Dude]

...diffusa really is not an ethically feasible option IMO.

I had no idea about the scarcity, if thats the case, no way until you have that flowering and seeding and you have a few seedlings cranking, still your choice bro.

Anyway i found this on erowid, it's pretty interesting. Not fussed about the origin, but a tropane-like delerient from a cactus source sounds interesting I'm curious how the faster growing trich alkaloid profile varies - if theirs the same isoquinolines in it.

On diffusa from here:

I knew that Lophophora diffusa does not contain mescaline. Which makes it all the more interesting , because L. diffusa is definitively very active as a psychotropic plant. I will hereby present an account of a L. difffusa experience.

...

..

.

...Within 30 minutes my hearing began to change: it was was like every word I or my friend said was pitched down considerably until it sounded like a growling or rumbling. This effect lasted untill well after the actual experience. Afer another 10 minutes I felt catatonic: transfixed in a motionless position. Eventually i probably fell over on my side and lay there, unable to move. I suddenly saw myself walking through the desert, the same we were currently in, until I arrived at a lonely house in the middle of nowhere. I went inside and came into what looked like a doctor's waiting room. Several indians were sitting there, apparently waiting to meet the "doctor". Eventually, it was my turn to enter the doctors office. Behind a desk there was a "man" looking like a giant peyote cactus, all green and with a "crown" like the fluffy rosette on top ofd a peyote. The man spoke, introduced himself as "doctor Roskowski" or something like that. Then he (it?) asked me " what was my reason to come and visit him?" I did not know what to answer and said something like " well, uhuhuhuh , I uuh just took some cactus to see what it was like..." He immediately went furious and made me understand that I was wasting his time and that people came to him for very good reasons, for advice etc. So he ordered someone to kick me out and told me to leave the area immediately. and I was literally kicked out of the house and was back in the desert. I walked through the desert for a long time until i saw my friend walking towards me in the distance. At the moment we were close enough to say "how'ryadoin" I "woke up" and saw my friend standing in front of me. Later he told me he had had exactly the same experience...He was frightened and wanted to leave the spot instantaneously. So we hitched back to Queretaro.

Weird huh? This is a true story! So now about: what is it? L. Diffusa does not contain mescaline, which was obvious during the "trip": there were no bright visuals, nor a "psychedelic" feeling. The whole experience could be compared better to a " delirium" you get from plants like Datura, Belladonna etc., a dreamlike state with very realistic hallucinations, without any profoundness or a lifting of spirits

Lophophora diffusa doescontain several "(tetrahydro)isoquinolines" which could be regarded "mescaline after it reacted to other stuff"

[blangschpeer]

No offense taken man.

The whole rarity point has been 80% of my argument (conservation wise and also a good way to say it would be 4-5x the price. in this case money talks...).

The remainder is the toxicity and lack of knowledge on the subject.

The little that He's read on the subject leads him to believe that it's purely a psychological trip and therefore equaliser. I've offered some other alternatives which hopefully will ease his curiosity, but time will tell.

I do tend to disagree with the cultivated vs wild grown statement, unless all cultivated specimens are going back to their place of origion, 1 plant properly harvested from a private collection will make virtually no difference as it will continue to grow even after being cut and each pup can be used to create a whole new plant.

[kadakuda]

perhaps in the wild but i would personally say it is cultivated far more than willaimsii because with diffusa you can breed out a lot of cool traits and willaismii less so. there are some cool diffusa varieties around and for cacti enthusiasts they are preferred (your right, they are usually more expensive).

I don't know about Aus, but out here they are much more preferred and much more common than williamsii (and more expensive). i am interested to hear his/her experience if they ever go through with it

[whiterasta]

Although some of them have to have been consumed, one does not hear about L. williamsii var. caespitosa or some of the Jordiana crosses either . This despite some rather large european collections I have seen in photos. On a pach graft or a Pereskiopsis one could easily plumb the depths a couple times to test the water Both out grow my williamsii by double....I do miss my greenhouse

[kadakuda]

in time, they will be reported on, don't you worry. just need to get people to write some stuff up.

[MORG]

the conservation status of diffusa is more of an issue than williamsii so i doubt you'd get people trying to promote their use even under conditions of cultivation.

I fail to see how the killing of a cultivated L. diffusa in a private collection in Australia will have any impact over the fate of wild populations.

Now I don't know anything about the conservation status of this plant or the measures being taken to ensure its survival in the wild, but unless individuals in cultivation are potential candidates for re-introduction to the wild then said individuals make no difference to the species' future (unless you consider human-mediated propagation a future).

The position that an individual of an endangered species should not be destroyed for the mere fact that it is 'endangered' regardless of whether or not the individual has an impact on the survival of said species in the wild is rationally flawed.

I would love a L. diffusa in my collection for the selfish reason that it is a really cool, rare plant. Maybe someday I'll have one (sourced entirely legally and ethically from a cactus-grower). I wouldn't destroy my L. diffusa for the selfish reason that it is such a rare and cool plant and I would want to keep it. I wouldn't not destroy it because I think I am contributing to the conservation of the species by doing so.

[apothecary]

(unless you consider human-mediated propagation a future).

You don't see that this may be the only option in the future as a possibility?

[MORG]

You don't see that this may be the only option in the future as a possibility?

Yes. It's possible that one day this plant will exist only in cultivation. In that case you can throw alot of your conservation biology out of the window.

Speaking purely from an Australian perspective, our system is not set up to manage species existing in this way. To manage threatening processes requires real populations to work with and in the case of a species purely in cultivation what is a population?

Conservation goals for purely captive species must be the maintenance of genetic diversity with or without a view to possible re-introduction. If it comes to that worse-case scenario then cultivators who are serious about maintaining genetic diversity wouldn't be giving genetically important individuals to people who might destroy them.

[M S Smith]

Besides a few contemporary attempts at ingesting this plant there is nothing in the literature which verifies this plant as having an ethnobotanical history. Even the name "peyote" only seems to be applied to it due to its relationship/similarity to L. williamsii. Neither of the main groups of "peyote" using indians, the Tarahumara and Huichol, use this plant or even get near it in their peyote pilgrimage. There are a number of Ariocarpus that also go by the name peyote while having no known traditional use by indian tribes, but do have some use as poulstices for wounds. I don't even think L. diffusa is used at all, even for medicinal purpose among the non-indians. Whatever situational threats come to it are going to come from overcollecting and habitat loss, but it will at this point never be lost in cultivation as it is far too widespread.

~Michael~

Edited November 12, 2007 by M S Smith

[SaBReT00tH]

does anyone have any grafted Loph Diffusa which is pupping like hell then whose pups could be traded and cultivated?

[kadakuda]

diffusa normally pup far more and sooner than williamsii. even my non grafted ones pup constantly! i also notice, in cultivation, they reach a bigger size faster (and seem to have an overall larger size from others collections i have seen).