I've searched here and on other sites for recommendations on brewing with leaf rather than vine and have come up with... not much.

My Cielo plants produce plenty of leaf, but the climate here prevents the vines from really gaining enough mass to use on a regular basis. In other words leaf is sustainable, vine is not. It is known that harmalas occur in the leaf, so...

My plan is to try an equivalent weight of leaf, say 50-100 gm as one would use for vine sections along with my normal amount of chacruna.

Any one else ever tried this? Or am I on the cutting edge?

Thoughts?

I was investigating the exact same thing yesterday to little avail. There is a thread on the Nexus with some analysis of different plant parts from various caapi strains. I will link it if I find time.

I don't see why it wouldn't work. It was my plan as well, since harvesting leaves seems much more plant-friendly. There may be more chlorophyll and plant fats to deal with but I don't see why it wouldn't work, it would just ne an issue of concentration. I intend on bioassaying in the future once I can come up with some speculative dry weight to dosage ratios.

I'm assuming getting the alkaloids out of the leaf will be more efficient than from woody tissue, and if I recall correctly alk concentration in the leaf is roughly the same as vine.

I think I'll go with fresh leaf rather than dried in order to start at a lower dose and work my way up from there, using the Shulgin method.

When I was in Ecuador we asked the Quechua shamans we were working with if they knew that leaves were active. They said yes but they didn't use them because it made the brew taste bad!

How pragmatic of them! I would be curious to to know if total alkaloid content is comparable or just harmal/harmaline. Nothing ventured, nothing gained! My (alleged) Cielo is a new addition so it will be some time before enough harvestable material exists to try it myself. Shame there isn't a concise guide to differentiate Cielo from another, save the more obvious like muricata and Alicia.

leaf is stronger than vine. 50g of leaf brewed should normally be stronger than 50g vine. I dunno why people doubt the strength of leaf often. There are tribes that use the leaf and not the vine..Johnothan Ott thinks the use of the leaf even predates use of the vine.

I have brewed leaf many times.

Thanks for that jamie.

Does your comment refer to fresh or dried leaf?

Just curious what you use, because I'm most likely to start off with fresh. Would 50 gr fresh be enough, or should I bump that up?

Relent, cielo is the most common caapi variety in circulation, so it's fairly certain that's what you've got. Alicia is just coming into cultivation in the US and muricata likewise, but is much harder to come by. Nobody in their right mind would sell or trade Alicia or muricata (or red, black or white) as cielo. Most likely would occur the other way 'round. Indeed, I'm highly suspicious that 'black' caapi cuttings currently making the rounds are in fact cielo.

I used dry leaf.

"Nobody in their right mind would sell or trade Alicia or muricata (or red, black or white) as cielo."

Actaully there have been a number of vendors intentionally mislabling Alicia and Muricata as Banisteriopsis Caapi becasue they were unable to sell the vine as muricata and alicia becasue most people still dont know what those vines even are.

Indeed they are jamie, but those vendors sell dried material. The one I know of was (and still is) selling Alicia as 'black caapi' for the reason you mentioned. Relent was concerned about the ID of his live plant, and that's what I was referring to.

Due to the rarity of Alicia and muricata in cultivation it would actually be a selling point to have them labelled correctly. I can't imagine going to the trouble of growing out a batch of either one and then selling them as cielo which has been grown here for at least 20 years.

As a matter of fact, I don't know of anyone selling either one of those yet as live plants from within the US. Kiwiboancaya offers them, but you have to go through the pain of ordering from Peru.

The color codes are just nick names, so no official error is possible in that.
Calling Alicia "black vine" is thus open for free choice.

It becomes another case when official manes get mixed up, like calling Alicia a Banisteriopsis, out of confusion or selling arguments. This was the case with some vendors.

The nick name *black* fits both:
- Banisteriopsis caapi "black"
- Alicia Anisopetala

The nick name *red* fits with all these:
- Banisteriopsis caapi "red", for example *McKenna Red*.
- Banisteriopsis Muricata
- Banisteriopsis Caupuri

This is as far as I understand.

to my understanding, mckenna red IS muricata, and caupuri is a part of the plant (dried root sections of the vine that grow under the earth), not a species (so it could be red, yellow, black, white, etc).

i may be mistaken.

As I understand it, caupuri is a colloquial variety of B. caapi (with knotty stems) and is distinct from the tukonaka variety (with smooth stems). Caupuri is also supposed to be more potent than tukonaka.

caupuri is a variety of Banisteriopsis Caapi that has those big knots/balls, that are absent in the normal Banisteriopsis Caapi strain called tukanaca..basically what Snozz said

ah, i was informed that the knots were a result of it being that part of the plant.
i too was told caupuri was more potent (only that it was because of the fact the root was so potent.)

my mistake

See here for a discussion and pics of the various strains courtesy of our friend Zaka:

http://www.thenook.org/f...showtopic=81719&st=0

You'll need to scroll down through the thread to see the pics. Most enlightening!

Thank you pinkoyd, for the non botanical specialist (like me) it becomes baffling.

An important quote:

Alkaloid profile and color of plant are vulnerable to growing conditions, even for same species.

Quite possible the harvesters have it wrong from time to time too, and it seems the vendors are also no specialists, leaving us behind puzzled and in confusion with contradicting information spread over the net.

Maybe better to stop breaking the poor head over it, and drink.

Ha! Somebody noticed!

Parshvik, that is the first I've heard of McKenna's Red being muricata. Do you recall where you heard/read that? Because if I recall correctly, muricata is supposed to be the species that has beta-carbs in the stem and DMT in the leaf, thus making a potential one plant complete brew. McKenna's red is available sporadically as a live plant by at least one vendor and if it IS muricata I think it would be another good one for Endlessness to work up on GC/MS.