Another trial of eating fresh Salvia verticillata... A few leaves gave a clear Salvinorin a feeling, even if nowhere near a breakthrough. And it felt pretty 'clean' in contrast to cryptantha which feels and is full of other oils/terpenes (eucalyptol being the dominant component). Even though verticillata is written to be slightly less potent than cryptantha, the Salvinorin a feeling is more obvious. Cryptantha is more heart opening, verticillata is more pure spiritual.

Apparently verticillata is sold as an ornamental plant... I would encourage experimentation with it.

The potency and quality of verticillata is reduced significantly in a few hours after harvesting, before even drying. This seems to be a universal phenomenon with Salvinorin A containing sages. They need to be consumed immediately after picking.

Does this also suggest that there's an optimal time of harvest? I'd say it does - for example, the most interesting results I got from a S. nemorosa were after I'd been storing it in a dark garage for two days.

Did you do that experiment on purpose, dfz? Leaving in darkness might be a stress factor increasing active production in some plants.

It was a fortuitous accident. I put them there 'overnight' for whatever reason (slug prevention?) and then of course something else happened and they stayed in the dark a bit longer than expected.

But that's a great idea. It would be really easy to attempt 'forcing' active metabolite production using an opaque bucket...

Hi
I haven`t posted anything in a while on the forum, but now I am happy to report on my recent successful extraction of homegrown Salvia Recognita.

I did a simple Acetone soak twice and then put some raw recognita leaves in, to evaporate on. The result was a 1:12 potency extract (60g worth of leaves were evaporated on 5g raw leaf).
When smoked there was an immediate and definitive onset, already in rather small quantities - similar to the effects of quidding Salvia D. Effects were relaxation, dissociation and the gliding into the (for me) typical dream-like state of Salvinorin. This state lasted surprisingly long for a smoked salvia experience (about 90min), confronting me with different episodes of nature, soil-life and peculiar things like funny faces, pulling sensations etc.

I am definately intrigued by this promising first experimentation and will report back when I visit it again



A note on growing S. recognita: It seems that this species is not perennial like stated on many pages but rather biennial. Also they are a bit slow to get going, but once they receive a lot of root space and good draining soil they are of low maintainance, fast growing and pretty to look at (especially during flower).
If there is an interest i can put some photos up

All the best
PlantPipeline

This is the first experience report of Salvia recognition AFAIK. Thank you!

Did you harvest your leaves recently? I would imagine it's potency being highest in spring and dwindling later, if the plant does not dry up already.

I know I will meet this sage in the wild some day as I dwell on its native regions. I will then add experience reports of it in addition to absconditiflora and verticillata.

Photos are always welcome for us lurkers, yes please

Looking back at this, I got much clearer results from chewing a bunch of glutinosa leaves than I ever got with attempting to smoke the dried leaves. It might still warrant making an extract if not for the fact that chewing is greatly preferable to vaping or smoking these plants.

The recognita report is a gem and serves to push it further up my grow list - more please, PlantPipeline!

Hi

Thank you for your interest. The leaves were collected all over the year, dried and stored in a bag. Though the most leaf material was harvested at the end of their life cycle probably in september of the second year. I was unaware of the fact that salvinorin-sages are best processed fresh - I always use dried divinorum leaves, which are well active.

Also, I smoked some more of the enhanced leaf and there were again clear effects although subjectively milder than last time...I guess I was also more tired before the first experiment. I noticed an elevated pulse both times, which made me a bit restless...not a racing heart but just enough elevation to notice the difference. There was a familiar moment during the experience yesterday, that reminded me of Salvia D.: When I can really let go of any thoughts and slip into sort of still space, where I do not really feel my body. Unfortunately this state is short lived, as it dissolves as soon as the mind starts to attach to thoughts again.
Next time I will try the collected extract instead of the enhanced leaf
I also want to add, that I feel the same in regards to chewing as the way to go (atleast with divinorum)...the reason for making the extract was, that the percentages in recognita is rather low

Is there anything one has to be aware of uploading pictures? Are they traceable?
I don`t have full plant shots, but they were big plants in the end. I have one plant left that is rather big...I`ll do some full plant shots

All the best
PP

and some more:

Ooh, nice flowers! So that's the recognita?
[The metadata for all uploaded pics gets stripped automatically for your security. It's up to you to avoid including anything that will be too readily identifiable.]

Salvias get priority space in my garden; the splendens and the guaranitica are flowering now, the glutinosa finished a couple of weeks ago.

What other species of salvia have you tasted?

Yes, these are the recognita

I also have some glutinosa going, but I haven`t given them much attention so far. Their lemony terpenes are wonderful smelling though...the first time I encountered glutinosa was in the wild, while hiking on a good dose of cactus - The smell was a truly magnificent sensual experience that put me in awe of the plant and natures capacities.
Also, I have big Divinorums which are just about to set flower...I hope that it eventually produces seed

I have tried to grow splendens a few years back, but the seeds never germinated. I really like salvia too...there are so many intersting species with amazing smells. I have quite a few wild/botanical garden collected species I have not touched yet. Next year I`ll grow some collected nemorosa. Do you have experience with it?

All the Best
PP

I got some nice results with nemorosa once after chewing some (yes, sorry - rather vague!) fresh leaves along with a similar amount of Nepeta sibirica leaves. This may have led me up the garden path with regard to the Siberian catmint for a while and confounds the whole experiment somewhat but I did get a spontaneous realignment of my spine, regular brickwork really 'popped out' visually, and later on there were some pleasant visuals of flowers and vegetation which lasted maybe 20 minutes while I drifted off to sleep.

Splendens/pineapple sage has really nice flowers and the aroma of the foliage is delicious - it makes great tea. I was lucky to be gifted a large plant which I've managed to keep alive in pots and as cuttings for several years now; normally it would get killed off by frost if it was simply left out in the garden. Here's hoping you get to experience the joy of this lovely plant. I just wish I could give you germination advice but as I say I've been propagating it from cuttings.

Great information and pictures in this thread. Thanks everyone for sharing!

Thanks for the description. My nemorosa interest was sparked by some reports of it having a pronounced sedating effect. Interesting, I have not heard of siberian catmint...have to check that out. I am well versed with regular catmint species though and have also created my own homegrown psychoactive/relaxing smoke blend consisting of: crushed catmint leaves, crushed lenotis lenurus flowers and a little bit of peppermint leaves. These seem to go very well together not only in effects, taste but also colour wise.

The splendens sounds lovely..I will sure grow them out at some point - right now I have almost too much plants and not enough space. I guess in regards to germination it wouldn`t be more finicky than other salvias...AFAIK all of them need cold temperatures over a longer period of time...I probably was not patient enough last time.

Also: Thanks a lot to the people who upvoted me for beeing a full member!

Been experimenting with eating dried absconditiflora (cryptantha) leaves. By itself I feel it clearly and I am altered to being more connected and heart centered. With rue it affects me very deeply, putting me in touch with deep emotions, however it also leaves me spaced out. The experience starts with the body feeling lighter and an urge to dance. Salvinorin a is clearly recognizable, but it has a lot of other things coloring the effect. Alpha pinene, camphor, eucalyptol are the main components of essential oil. Pain killing is very pronounced. So dry leaves work, though fresh is better.

Eating is also extremely difficult as it burns the mouth intensely and finally leaves you numb to taste for a while. I am hypothesizing that there are unwanted components (boiling never gives an experience, there is a block) and I will try cold water extraction similar to the mazatec tradition (crushing the leaves in water). Correct me if necessary, but I think the mechanism in this case is not making a solution of S A but simply ripping it off the plant and mixing it in the water.

My strongest experiences so far have been by mixing warm water extract of the leaves with phragmites tea, and boiling them together. The rich saccharide content of phragmites seemed to have a potential for complexation, and I have experientially confirmed this. Once I tried it with rue. It was very visionary and gave an energetic experience that I can only describe as kundalini awakening. Very deep primal emotions awakened. It also has this effect of making me feel exactly what others are feeling every moment. A kind of empathogenicity I guess, very powerful.

Sage has been conquering my heart...

The ally spirit in it, the powerful guiding presence, and the impeccable connection to self, deep emotions, and the natural world.

I am talking about S. cryptantha, now called S. absconditiflora.

Also been exploring S. verticillata and it clearly has a powerful guiding spirit as well, and is more similar to divinorum (it is also noted to be genetically close to S. divinorum). Even though I am no less impressed by it, I have this intuition that my path is with absconditiflora which is more heart focussed.

Ate 20 fresh leaves of verticillata the other day and it was enough for significant effects for me. Verticillata has two varieties here, one narrow leaved and one broad leaved. The narrow leaved variety barely has visible trichomes on it while the broad leaved is as hairy as can be imagined. Since salvinorin a is said to be concentrated on trichomes, I never tried the narrow leaved variety.

Absconditiflora is like a "mother's lap" with it's pure unconditional infinite soft compassion and love and it's connection to all that is. But it also takes guts to go deep with it because this very impeccable connection to deep emotions make you feel all the very difficult emotions stored in you to the fullest...Takes a proper ceremony to facilitate a cleaning/transformation of these emotions. The plant's spirit imparts a total heart opening, pure love, compassion, and connection to all beings - plants, animals, humans... For me liberty caps were also kind of like this. By this point I experience being influenced by this energy just from harvesting it.

It also has a very "shamanic" guiding spirit.

I am also intrigued by S. recognita as it is a genetically close relative of absconditiflora. I am guessing it will have the distinct heart opening character as well. I will find it one day, I know it grows not far from the garden of eden where I am gifted with all my ally plants. Just, now is the time to establish my allyhood with absconditiflora for me.

I would like to propose that these sages are more potent than the findings in the original study of the thread, as it is the leaves which have the highest concentration of SA and the measurements were of the entire aerial parts. I am also pretty sure that absconditiflora has other potentiating and synergizing components in it. As would be expected from me, I will finish this with saying that it is best not to approach these sages as a factory of SA to be extracted and concentrated, and it is best to approach them as whole medicine spirits.

Last 4 pics S. verticillata, the rest S. absconditiflora.

One more absconditiflora pic, and one narrow leaved verticillata variety pic.

Hm, the absconditiflora leaves look just like 'normal' garden sage (S. officinalis) ones, and those of the verticillata are fairly similar in appearance to those of S. glutinosa (flowers are different in both cases ofc). This last one I've experienced mild effects from chewing about a dozen fresh leaves - and it has been found to contain sal-A at least sometimes. Nice that it's fairly easy to propagate in my climate, too.

Inspiring thread, thanks for recent additions.