palazaka wrote:Hello! I'm new here, but need help with this Chakruna and i know there are some highly knowledgeable members in here. It was sold to me online as P. Viridis, but i am inclined to believe it was mislabeled. There are many characteristics to consider, none of which seem like absolute determinants. The most prominent feature of my concern of it not being a viridis is the premature cutoff of the blade as it joins the stem, true Viridis leaves seem to connect directly on the stem. This is what i have gathered, but I'm still not sure whether its Viridis, Carthenegenisis, or Alba. I'd appreciate some input on helping me know if i have a valuable specimen.
The
best ID would be the flower structures, whenever your plant flowers, however that being said, I'm assuming you don't want to wait that long for a positive ID. There's actually a vendor who insists that the plant he is selling is viridis (and that the only way to ID it is by flower, which is not true, imo...flower is ideal, but there are other morphological traits you can use) and claims on his website that this has been "verified by science"
the plant looks like an alba. You're dead on, imo, with regards to the manner in which the leaves attach to the stem for viridis vs. alba/carthagenensis.
I don't know if wavy stipules are the best identifier as, ime, the newly forming stipules and leaves of other Psychotria spp. can look rather similar. Perhaps the mature ones are more discernible, but I can't comment on that.
From your pictures, I'm inclined to agree that it is an alba/carthagenensis. According to the nomenclatural literature, alba is synonymous with carthagenensis. I have seen phenotypes that are supposedly representative of each "species" and they do look rather different, but that could be infraspecific morphological differences of carthagenensis.
Ultimately, I believe you have what is generally referred to as P. alba by people within the community. I have one of these plants as well (if you got yours from a place with the initials VB, we have the same plant
). One easy way to verify it is to watch the growth speed. How fast is it growing and putting out new leaves? The P. alba specimen I have has shot up by 2-3 feet over the months I have had it, whereas the P. viridis has not put on more than a couple inches in perhaps a quarter to half of that time.
Ringworm used to be a major supplier of some of these botanicals and if you look in his
Psychotria propagation thread you can see examples of the three phenotypes alba/carthagenensis/viridis, although I don't know if he's re-labeled them yet (the order is alba, viridis, carthagenensis). He said that back when he grew/distributed them, very little was known about morphology within Psychotria, and afaik, it's still one of the most complex/confusing genera to ID.
P. alba is supposed to be psychoactive. There are reports in the literature for both P. alba and P. carthagenensis having anywhere from no alkaloidal content to similar alks and % alks as P. viridis. According to ringworm, the alba that he had/distributed thousands of was about half as active as P. viridis, which you could argue is more than made up for by its increased growth. I have not yet sampled any of my plant, but I do plan on sending endlessness some material from it soon so that we can get some GC/MS readings on it.
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