Thanks for this link. Very good resource .

How about this one then? I found one exactly the same. I found quite a lot of it actually. Seems to be on the east face of every tree in one area.

Here are two samples of the local strain I found. I did indeed smoke some anyway, and it tasted like a cake. It was like smoking a nice cherry bakewell. It produced a certain but short lived relaxing effect, felt more in the head, just a relaxing chilled feeling, which gradually built up to be quite obvious. This was one bowl of it. Looking at the pics though, it would appear there are in fact two strains of lichen here. Not sure which produced the effect. There is the gray/yellow strain with the nodes and the smaller leafy strain which looks more like pictures previously posted here.

I just realised we need to have some professionals with proper labs to analyse a wide variety of these Lichens.
What about MAPS for instance. Would they be interrested in researching this? Who knows what chemists may find
in lichens. There are so many varieties. We could find so many compounds with so many potential uses.

Although MAPS are professionals, I bet their hands are still pretty tied. But with all the new DMT & LSD research going
on who knows; the scientific research for psychoactive compounds in plants (and lichens) might get more freedom & more funding.
I remember House saying in the Alex Jones Thread that he personally knew alot of extremely wealthy topcats who really enjoyed
their DMT, LSD, 2-CB and Mescaline, so Psychedelic Research getting more funding in the future isn't hard to imagine.

Cause to really know what compounds a certain lichen contains you need at least a gas chromatography, am I right?
And a gas chromatographer is a really expensive piece of work that probably requires quite alot of knowledge &
skill to use right.

Perhaps with certain reagents used to test for the presence of known drugs(LSD, THC, DMT/4-HO-DMT, Harmine, Mescaline...etc)
some crude indication of what type of compounds are in the lichen could be revealed, but then you still wouldn't know what
compounds they are. But it would be so fascinating to be able to tell exactly what compounds can be found in the various
species of lichens.

Shaolin had an idea for the conference in february.

Reagent/TLC/GC-MS/LC-MS/bioassay data on some lichen.

I figured we should start with x. conspersa. I can't remember if we have chemical data on this or not?
EDIT: nen888 posted P. conspersia (or X. conspersia) contained , as well as usnic acid, salazinic, stictic and norstictic acids, but doesn't appear to have been tested for alkaloids..

Also, who wants to send in a sample to endlessness of x. conspersa? I can do it but I have to travel a bit and I'm not sure when I can do that.

Lichenologists, please step forward. Thanks.



P.S. I am working on identifying the hypogymnia spp. that InMotion is currently extracting as posting on page 8 of this thread.

P.P.S. One of us needs to get this book! http://www.amazon.ca/Lic...id=1324330325&sr=1-1

Lichens of North America by Mr. Irwin M. Brodo (Author), Ms. Sylvia Duran Sharnoff (Author), Stephen Sharnoff (Author)

Has there been any progress here?

Seems that lichen studies are @ a winter standstill...

I was flippin' through stumbleupon when I came across a silly cracked article "7 species that get high more than we do."
Not exactly the most credible source, mind you. More entertainment, really.
http://www.cracked.com/a...gh-more-than-we-do.html/

Anyway- They brought up once again the reindeer who will risk their lives to get this lichen that takes decades to grow, is bright green, and they basically grind their teeth down to the gums just to get some. According to this page it is in "inhospitable regions of the rockies."



So- Could this possibly be a lead on a novel lichen to test? I don't see why not. It would be great to ask any local folks who are near the rockies if they have seen this growing or if they want to hunt for it when it warms up in the spring. Just an idea. Plus I wanted to bump this thread!

Actually, I'm not to fond of this lichen thing we've got goin' on here. I feel that we maybe should drop it since they take so long to grow. Unless someone find a way to cultivate them.

But the moss seem very promising. It should also be really really easy to grow also. You just blend it together with som yoghurt and paint it on something and then it grows.

I actually found some amazingly beautiful moss today. It was all red, like it was blooming! Will take some photos tomorrow.

You can hate it all you want,

the wind blows this slow growing precious lichen on the ground to rot or be picked up by apes.

When it comes to testing samples, a small piece is all that's needed. If you find a strain of lichen that doesn't get blown all over the ground (like a lot of them do) all you need is a tiny piece.

Yes but I was thinking of what might happen if this becomes widly known. If this would become a popular drug then these lichens would become endangered pretty fast.

It would be nice if there was someway a rock colonized by said lichen species could be mailed, so that I/fellow peoples could grow some of our own.

Relax Tordyveln,

I REALLY don't see psychoavtive Lichens becomming a huge hype.
The only ones interrested in these lichens are a few nexians here
and a few new age folks on the hippyforums (where I found the original article)

No one actually verified any specific species being psychoactive: That research
could be done by some of the Nexus members with access to Gas Chromatographers
& other means of chemical analysis. Would be great to determine the chemical
compositions of several species of very common Lichens.

IF one of us finds a truely psychoactive Lichen, it will be shared & known here.
But beyond this site I doubt many people will interrest themselves in Lichens.
I know MANY people who are interrested in DMT, yet know nothing of the plant sources
it is often extracted from. Nor are they interrested in how it's extracted, just as
long as they can smoke it. I suspect Lichens won't be any different.

Lichen Handbook, a guide to the Lichens of Eastern North America by M. Hale
Lichens of California by M. Cole

I recently read these two books and took notes of interest as well as snapped photos of relevant information from the first one (anatomy, chemistry, chemical composition, chemical identification, strain variables, pictures of chemical crystals located in the zip file, pm me if interested). Here are some notes from the Lichen Handbook.

- The color of lichen is dictated by the algae the lichen is in symbiosis with. Most species have one, but some have two.

- Lichen contain 1/10 to 1/4 the amount of chlorophyll of normal plants, which could explain their slow growth rates. They have been shown to grow within the .01 to 10mm range per year, for example:

Rhizocarpon Grande grows on average .33cm per year, while
Parmelia Rudecta can grow on average of 4cm per year.

- Foliose lichens may reach diameters of 1-3 feet. Rock tripes in the Great Smoky Mountains have been found to be 3 feet in diameter. Fruticose lichen may reach 6 feet in length. The average mature species is estimated to be 100-200 years old.

- Lichen can be liquid cultured.

- The algae itself can be removed from the lichen and cultured.
First, the external parts of the lichen should be thoroughly washed to remove epiphytic free living algae on the surface. The upper cortex is then sliced away with a razor blade until algae is exposed. Bits of algae with attached hyphae are transferred to a microslide and macerated with a drop of water. Alternate drying and wetting of slide in brighht light and it will colonize in a few weeks. Sterile agar also works, and its been shown to grow faster with glucose and amino acids but they are not needed.

- The fungal component of the lichen can be removed and cultured as well the same way any other fungus would be, although this would be done by removing the white hyphae from the medulla. If there are bits of algae present it has been shown that the fungus will overtake it so it shouldn't bee too problematic.

- Reinke and De Bary introduced the idea that the algae and fungus derived mutual benefit from their association, the algae gaining improved water relations, the fungus being provided food by dead or living algal cells. They called this relationship symbiosis or consortism.


CHEMISTRY


- The cell walls consist mostly of lichen starch lichonin (iodine negative) or more rarely isolichenin (iodine + blue) and hemicelluloses. Poly-hydric alcohols are common, and the oligasacharides, some unique to lichens, demonstrated widely separated genera.

- Fatty substances are abundant in most lichens as oil in the medulla. Other cell constituents include ~16 free amino acids, growth substances, vitamins, and various mineral elements, some in high concentrations, as well as other common products found in fungal material, as well as the same for free living algae.

- Species of lichen have chemical strains. Meaning, one species of lichen can have a different chemical profile depending on a number of factors. There are 40 to 50 known lichen that have different strains.

Notes from Lichens of California

- TLC

Extract thallus with acetone.
Spot TLC, place in tank w/ toulene + aioxane + acetic acid or w/ hexane + ether + formic acid.
After solvent rises 10cm, plate is removed, dried, sprayed with 10% solution sulfuric acid and heated to 100 degrees celcius for five minutes.

- Vulpinic acid, which is a yellow pigment found in Wolf Moss, is a mild poison. It is the only poison found so far in the entire lichen kingdom.

All other lichen are edible and non toxic.

Vulpinic acid was used in Europe to add in bait to sicken wolves.

- Tribes in British Columbia processed Brygria into small cakes, and rock tripes are a delicacy in Japan.

- In the middle ages, using lichen for dye was a trade secret done by soaking them in urine for the ammonia for a few days and then evaporating to make a pigment.

- The hair growing on the underside of the lichen that we were trying to figure out some months ago is called Cilia. Both of these books have helpful indexes and definitions of words used to identify and describe lichen and I would recommend them both for this reason alone, probably Lichens of California as it's newer than the Lichen Handbook. There is a book called Lichens of North America that I still need to get which will hopefully make identification a lot easier. There are easily a thousand lichen in California alone.

Found a sci fi book written about lichen, sure it fantasy but check it out . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trouble_with_Lichen

Love the plot, prolonging life, drama, they turn on eachother, stage her own death ect

Re where to find Lichen ....

Do you live in a older house with a tiled roof ?

It's probably right above you - right now.... waiting.....

Interresting. I'm looking forward to hear the results of your research, Caban!

Evenin' all,

This thread sparked an interest in checking out my local area for sources of psychoactives and has led to finding a veritable smorgasbord of delights. I went out exploring today and found a few promising specimens which I'm currently drying and identifying before doing anything with them, but I picked up one, what I suspect to be, sample of lichen that I would appreciate some help with.

I'm fairly sure it's usnea glabrescens but I don't know whether or not it's psychoactive. I'm drying it out anyway as it's a beautiful looking thing, I'm really just getting my feet wet with this foraging this but it's tremendous fun.

On the subject of the original OP: Has anyone done any more study and research on these psychoactive lichen? Has anyone in the U.K. found anything interesting in their own experiments?

I'm fascinated by this thread and want to thank the OP, as well as the other who've contributed such valuable information. I hope to be able to contribute to this in the near future.

Thanks for the ID and the info, Caban. I'll put my hands up and admit I have no clue about this sort of thing right now, my identification of it was based on a quick look on google, so I really appreciate your feedback. I don't think I'll bother to bioassay it, but I'll post more pics as I continue to look into this and see if we can open the topic up at bit again.

Thanks again for your time and input!