<as mentioned in one of the quotes..ancient sacred grasses..

..the rites and initiation in Ancient Greece in Eleusis, in the temple of demeter are agreed by all to centre around the family Graminaceae..which includes grain grasses like wheat, and bird-seed/animal grasses like phalaris..and to have involved secrecy and the drinking of an entheogenic potion - the Kykeon..

now, while R. Gordon Wasson. Albert Hofmann. Carl A. P. Ruck. and Richard Evans Schultes
suggested, from a few ancient references and carvings that the graminae plant was a wheat or rye (hence ergot infested) there are two major problems with this theory:

1) no one has suggested or demonstrated a way that a straight ergot based drink could be made non-toxic..the 'St. Anthony's Fire' of medieval days reflects the horror of ergot poisoning..the eleusis experience was said to have been profound and serene at points..a vision of the 'truth' of life and death..demeter's body..

2) it was forbidden under pain of death to actually reveal what the brew was or talk in detail about the ceremony..hence it is unlikely passing old references to various grains were the actual grasses..more hints..or guesses by the uninitiated..
and if we look at the actual carvings/inscriptions from the Temple of Demeter (or what's left of it..angry Roman Christians had it destroyed) there is no way anyone, not even a botanist, could be certain what grass..could be wheat, could be phalaris..we just know its Grass..

..but, as Phalaris is essentially originally native to Greece and Turkey, and spread early to Italy and North Africa..and if you boil some down like gnostic Jim De Korne and try a bit..well, you'd notice something was going on..surely in 5000 years of ancient greece somebody noticed something about Phalaris..
personally i think the ancient depictions look most like Aquatica..

Europa..gather back thy roots!
.

of course, we know there were a few admixture plants comprising the kykeon, and alternatives to it..>

Livestock Health
New light shed on phalaris toxicity
Scientists have discovered how sheep and to a lesser extent cattle succumb to a polioencephalomalacia (PE)-like (nervous form) sudden death phalaris poisoning.
by Megan Broad,
for CSIRO LIVESTOCK INDUSTRIES [Edit: now attached below]



also, some new info (to me anyway) :

P. minor (worldwide distribution) i believe is believed by the FDA to contain tryptamine alkaloids..some tests in the 90s detected dmt..
P. paradoxa is also believed to contain tryptamines [Aus. Vet. Journal 2008]

attached images: 1) Phalaris paradoxa 2) P. paradoxa گیاهان هرز ایران in Jordan 3) Phalaris minor 'Little Seeded Canary Reed'

^..to clarify on the staggers finding..this means the responsible toxin will not make it to an non-polar extraction, and, in the amounts consumed in an 'huasca' type brew would not be enough to harm humans..animals graze vast amounts..
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thanks nen! this is great info especially your success with aquatica.

Ive been having bad luck with vendors in reguards to grasses..the australian aquatica seed I got seems to not be viable..maybe it's too old..I tried twice now to germinate some seed with no luck..and the vendor I found that was willing to send me big medicine send it without any dirt, in a shopping bag stuffed in an envelope and I received it covered in mold..there is a lack of vendors interested in phalaris in canada.

I hope more vendors start to carry legit strains and seed and some more trade forums start up.

I grew brachys over the summer but it did not put out much seed..def not enough to even grow the same ammount.

what was the problem, do you have any clue or pointer's ? i am going to try and germinate mine in spring. i am assuming they like wet climate, becuase the patches i stumbled on were near sea. also i noticed that during the hotest days of summer brachystachy dries out.

yeah thanks for the great info nen.. paradoxa reminds me a lot of brachystachys. the pharlaris are quite a beautiful looking species actually. one thing I've never been able to understand is why people hate letting grass grow... it really is a lovely plant when full grown

..also from that report:
..and also "Experimental evidence tryptamine alkaloids do not cause Phalaris aquatica sudden death syndrome in sheep" Bourke C.A., Carrigan M.J., Dixon R.J.; Australian Veterinary Journal Volume 65, showed neither dmt or 5meo were implicated either..or phenethylamines or gramine for that matter..

yeah i don't get it jamie..it's so easy topropogate from live material, and selected good tryptamine (let'scall them 'low toxicity strains' ) have been known for 20 years..the extract from P. aquatic var' Australia' mentioned earlier was done in the late 90s..using vinegar, vodka boil plus lye and naphtha (almost the only time i've ever seen naphtha used!) ..it wouldn't solidify and was dribbled as a goo into an oil pipe..it was very mild on the lungs and quite meditative compared to acacia obtusifolia extracts, which could be ferocious..and harsher to take in..% was about 0.3%..from blades..i haven't had time to do a follow-up..but live plants are known at a few nurseries around the world, as well as AQ1 etc..from recollection phalaris seed is only viable for about 2-3 years..having multiple individual plants plus hand pollination increases chances of seeding and amounts..
an ag paper says of P. aquatic var. Australia:

also from the ag world:


..now i'll shut up and see what comes in..

..while some question, others quietly work away and achieve..

pdf on successful Phalaris tek by fourthripley here..
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Went on a trip back home to Romania, and on the way back had to travel 500km by train to get a plane back. Alongside the country I saw huge clusters of phalaris, standing tall even in the cold weather. Some elderly people told me they don't use those grasses to feed the animals anymore because they act strange and go insane

It was simply beautiful

so phalaris is fair game, then?!?

i got a giant freezer bag just sitting in my fridge..

also does this mean a full-spectrum extract (q21q21 limo) would be safe? or are the other potentially harmful molecules that could make it through as well?

it means that Gramine and Hordenine, the alkaloids produced by most Phalaris species, will be present only in trace amounts in your extract if you use room temperature limonene or naphtha, and the amount of toxic alkaloids in single dose brew of Phalaris species should not harm your body.

the phalaris analysis thread started by endlessness quite a while ago contains all this info.you should have read it by now.

i thought it meant gramine and hordenine aren't the ones responsible, and that N-MethylTyramine was...


gramine doesn't seem to be much of a concern... i don't know much about hordenine

Gramine raises blood preasure and heart rate, imo its still an unwanted alkaloid in your extractions.why would you put extra bodyload on your jorney's.

^..bit rushed to give post#, but there was several pages in this thread looking at these alkaloids..
basically Gramine, Hordenine and Phenethylamines are NOT PARTICULARLY TOXIC in the amounts a human would ingest and are not likely to migrate to a d-limonine NP extraction as shown by endlessness..
by not very toxic toxic, i mean animals are fed grams and grams of the stuff before shaking..
5meoDMT is more toxic it could be argued than gramine or hordenine, physiologically..
and as for Tyramine, as i quoted in the paper on staggers on the last page, TYRAMINE (N-methyl or otherwise) DOES NOT CAUSE PHALARIS POISONING in animals..and again, is not 'acutely' toxic..

in other words.. not as much need to worry as underground here say has had as think for a few years..
.

what if these alkaloids come in contact with maoi. are there any thoughts on that ? or better said, are they also potentiated ?

^..i would be more concerned at ingesting 5meo with maois than any of the above mentioned substances..
i have ingested tyramine with maois, and, while pretty weird, didn't lead to a hypertensive crisis..
Hordenine is in reasonable amounts in peyote, which has been ingested with maois..
PEA i don't know..
but i do know that quite a few unknown phalaris brews have been drunk without reported adverse effects except either 'too strong' or lasting 24 hours!

there MAY be more toxic compounds than alkaloids in some phalaris, so obviously all caution is advised with drinking phalaris..and, without TLC or similar, one shouldn't..

but, smoking Phalaris extracts should be reasonable safe IMO (even if there's gramine in there..it was a dietary health supplement remember! there have been some underground myths on phalaris alkaloids for the past decade..

good to know this. thanks for the info nen808. i think i am quite sensitive to tryptamines. i know this from repeated experience with dmt and maoi's.

i have also worked with cactus twice, and i ingested it in raw form(dried powder). it was pedro for sure and both of the times after the experience i had very strong headache's. i was careful with my diet, and i didnt combined any maoi prior. I am almost sure that it was caused by the cocktail of alkaloids in the pedro.

wait, so what causes the ammonia overload in sheep?

..an unknown compound which is not an alkaloid which is only in some Phalaris which is thought to come from a parasitic micro-organism or fungus living on the grass..the ammonia is ingested via diet (kilos of pasture a day!), the unknown compound causes it to build up over time..it's a long term/large amount feeding problem..
remember, there are more deaths per year from animals being poisoned by infested Rye grass than Phalaris..but i don't here many entheogen heads warning us not to eat Rye!..

so would this mean it would be safe to use as a mushroom substrate?