This acacia i'm not sure, it has no flower now but i remember from other years, the flowers are round.

This one i'm not even sure if it is acacia. It has leaves instead of phyllodes?

my post was a Piptadenia moniliformis, nen.
I knew all the time, was testing your identification skills.

kidding, just found out.

..thanks iracema..i was scratching my head..

i suspect Piptanedia is currently under botanical revision as a number of piptanedia's are also synonymous with Acacias..e.g. A. santossi, A. paniculata..

hey kiang.. the first and third photo of your first post look like acacia longifolia subs. sophorae.. and the bottom three look like they may be acacia saligna

Hey guys, I am in the China, Shenzhen / Hong Kong area and have found what looks to be like Acacia Confusa, can someone please let me know if I am correct? There are no flowers so it makes it a little hard for me to know. Also, when is this plant supposed to flower?

Thanks a bunch for any help!

it certainly looks like it.. not 100% sure though

Thankyou acacian. Bunderoo national park is the next stop to check out some obtusifolia growing in the area. Do you have any more photos or info to help with the identification

Thank you for the reply acacian (assuming it was directed at me)

Is there any specific indicators that I can look for besides the leaves? I looked at the bark of the tree and it seems to vary greatly from one tree/plant to another. Some smooth, some with bark that is easy to peel (I did not peel it, but can tell by looking at it)

Also, when is it supposed to flower? That would make things a lot easier.

Thank you!

One more thing, I know this is a little off topic but, what is the best method for sustainable harvesting of Acacia Confusa? I heard these plants are easily affected by cutting the root bark, I want to know how much is OK to take per full grown tree?

How about taking bark from the branches? How thick should the branch be to make it worthwhile?

Lastly, what is the normal way to go about testing it, just brew a very small amount and drink it, hope I am still alive in a few hours, lol.

Sorry for all the newb questions, but I have limited time here and would like to figure this out while I still have access to the plant.

hi medium..it probably is Acacia confusa, based on phyllodes, and location, however flowers or pods would decide for certain..
A. confusa has a fairly wide flowering period, from March until September..
..the other candidate is Acacia auriculiformis (which has had tentative 5meoDMT detected by J. Appleseed/Trout), an Austraian/New Guinea native planted in Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Zhejiang..it however tends to have broader phyllodes..it has twisted wide pods and rod/spike flowers, whereas A. confusa has ball-shaped flowers and more pea-like pod shape..
..the stem/branch bark content of A. confusa is usually equivalent to root/trunk bark..harvesting of root bark (& to an extent trunk bark) is fatally harmful to Acacias, so pruning a branch is the most eco-friendly way..the safest way to test an unknown tree is to do a small scale extraction (A/B) and vaporise the resulting extract..while Confusa is safe to ingest orally, without absolute 100% ID this is safer..there are no reported extracts or bioassays of A. auriculiformis..

below are herbarium specimens of A. auriculiformis, then A. confusa to illustrate the differences..

I was astounded to read this on the Botanical Spirit website:



I find it odd that they slam stem/branch bark vendors for not being sustainable yet they are claiming to harvest rootbark.. is there anyway to actually do such a thing sustainably? It annoys me that they would even feel the need to be havesting the rootbark when the stem and branch is likely good content as well.. especially at commercial quantities

^..this is just irresponsible and ill-informed..or catering to a folkloric market (who think it's just in the rootbark).. the tests done by endlessness as well as numerous experiments confirm that root bark and stem bark are the same percentage/contents..(i.e DMT/NMT+trace betacarbolines)
..the harvesting of rootbark would kill the tree..in the long term this is not sustainable..
i find it interesting that Tawain and China (in particular) have it together with plantations which are sustainably harvested, whereas Hawaiin sources are ripping in like cowboys..i suppose that A. confusa is technically a weed in Hawaii could justify this, but it's not a longterm outlook..

just as much of what has been called Mimosa hostillis root bark is in fact trunk/stem (and perfectly good) indicates that those who do manage plantations are wiser than using exclusively root bark..they want their trees still there and growing branches the next year, and so on..

..in basically all acacias i'm aware of, rootbark/trunkbark and stembark are the same..
.

.. yeah this is what I am thinking. It would make perfect sense after the whole MHRB fiasco.. its funny, I suspected all along that the stem branch and trunk of mimosa hostilis would have been perfectly active. The odd thing is why would vendours need to lie in the first place.. maybe the rootbark was what was used first up... but it would make sense to me to just tell people instead that the other parts of the tree are active too and that there's no need for rootbark craving... then there would be no expectation from the buyers for it to be rootbark in the firstplace

..don't think BotanicalSpirit is a very fitting name for these guys... more like BotanicalSpear-it.

seems odd to me that a plant teacher would only have its actives in such a place... then again, I guess we have things like iboga

nen888 you the man!

Thanks so much for your time. I have a clear picture now of what I will do. Which includes not using any root bark and just going for the branches instead.

I will also wait until it flowers before taking them, just because I do not have the skills or resources to do any kind of ab extraction and I would like to be certain of what I am taking before I drink it. (I will not mix it with anything since I heard it works without a MAOI) But knowing that acacias are not poisonous is a relief, so I guess the worst case scenario is the stuff does not work.

Thanks again, I will post an update when all is said and done.

Cheers!

Just one thing to keep in mind is that acacia's are often reduced in content during flowering... you could also try doing an extraction on a small amount before it flowers and see if anything comes of it..

acacian, thank you for that information. That does change my plan a little.

I will try a small amount first.

By the way, I do not know how to do extractions, I am making a brew with only the branch bark. No MAOI.

so continuing with the mystery acacia which I recently posted in the info thread, I thought I'd add a few more photos to clear up a few characteristics that were missed in the other photos due to not so good lighting.. as you can see there are actually three prominent longitudinal veins accompanied by minor longitudinal veins moderately anastomosing.... the phyllodes have a stiff leathery texture and red edges. I have not located a basal gland either.. length of mature phyllodes = 7.8-7.9cm .. tastes bitter.

..hard to describe the smell upon burning.. i did a burning test side by side with an old phlebophylla phyllode and they had quite similar smell, though whether this could be attributed to alkaloids is a bit of a long stretch.. anyways will have a crack at it tonight and have results by tomorrow hopefully. unfortunately the photos seem to reduce in quality a little when directly uploaded to nexus.. but the veins should be fairly distinguishable

Hey guys/girls.

I went for a walk on a trail a week ago to check up on an Acacia that had just started to flower. Half way along the walk to the tree, I came across another Acacia that looked like it had been cut down only a few hours earlier.

I was able to strip most of the bark and came back with a good amount. My only problem is, I don't know what species it is and I was hoping someone here could help with an ID.

..kiang [p17 here]..looks like A. retinodes..the 'mimosa of the four seasons'..

and wage [above]..also looks like a variety of Retinodes, or very close relative..