^..i am aware of 2 tests with positive results..one may have been a hydbrid with A. sophorae..
so i don't know how variable it is..re acacian's result, would have been good to check photos for ID confirmation..A. oxycedrus can be mistaken for A. verticilata and A. ulicifolia..

PS. this thread should be moved to Collaborative Research DONE

the varieties I tested were definitely a.oxycedrus and not verticilata. i only tested the spikes and would like to test the bark some day - its just difficult to get a decent amount of it without entirely killing the tree.. I definitely am still interested in oxycedrus and would love to be graced with some of the "golden extract" you spoke of some time ago.. have you tried the extracts personally?

the variety I tested (three times and during flower) was as below:

^yup pretty sure Im growing offspring from that tree

here's a hybrid between a.oxycedrus and a.mucronata subs longifolia for admirers and researchers.. haven't been able to find any photographic material around of this particular hybrid (or any really for that matter), so joyous to be able to contribute some for tree lovers to marvel at. both mucro and oxy were found growing within a 200m radius of the below specimen. phyllodes stiff and very sharp, trunk fairly smooth with grainy texture, inflorescence slightly looser and fluffier than oxycedrus.. loving the vibe of it

hmm weird how its growing out like that. i have young shrubs about half the size, but similar leaf structure and size, except its not overly woody, all the leaves point more forward, and it has scimitar seed pods, there is a scimitar leafed variant also. ill have to wait till it flowers. ill try get some pics in the mean time. very large amount of them near I -in a particular valley.

EDIT, actually no, they are about twice as long leaves

I can assure that this acacia is inactive even when dealling with rather large quantities.
My friend must have collected a kilogram of phyllodes and twigs from various mature plants on christmas eve and yeilded zilch.
He wishes to reattempt in winter to test if its seasonal and would love to do tests on some of its hybrids!

Edit: It is worth mentioning the plants tested were not flowering although their neighbours were beggining to.

a galliant effort Holographic You..

though quiet on the acacia front right now, i would recommend, for testing a species, using a TLC kit, in which case only a gram of plant material is required...far less wasteful..
also, only a couple of hundred grams are needed to do an A/B to examine a species, there's no need to go out and use kilograms..another factor is that with fresh, undried material there are factors (i've talked about elsewhere) which will prevent the alkaloids being easily or at all extracted in standard AB or STB procedure, without careful attention...but a whole methanol soak with a TLC/reagent test on it will always spot the alkaloids...that's one way people can tell if an extraction has failed..

certainly the variances of A. oxycedrus are not known, but as far as positive results go, i should also mention that the CSIRO found it 'triple positive' for alkaloids (which means a lot) in it's surveys of species, which was a stronger result than A. obtusifolia, as intertexta, in their alkaloid survey of species (p15 info thread) ..given though that it has naturall hybrids with A. sophorae, floribunda and mucronata, there is certainly some species complexing going on there..

also, it's worth mentioning that at least one 'negative finding' with A. oxycedrus actually turned out to be a mis-identification and was Acacia verticillata, though once one knows oxycedrus it's easy to tell apart..

thank you for the report so far Holographic You

Hi nen,
I probably shouldn't have sounded so blunt in my post, of course there are many factors involved when experimenting with these acacias and just because it has turned up blank in this case it does not mean to give up entirely.
I am intrigued by your statment about working with fresh material being a hit and miss, I was under the impression that drying the plant material would give enzymes more time to break down any actives.
I will look into these TLC kits as it may save my friend a lot of time and effort, are they easily obtainable or made?

More photos of this beautiful wattle!

^ it is a beautiful species...the image in the first post is a slightly different form, with paler, longer flowers.
but also in some cases (not all) flowering leads to reduction of or change in alkaloids..
the images acacian posted are hard to tell from forms of mucronata..

i have no problem with blunt posts...just leads to blunt replies


..well no, with tryptamines..if not leached by rain or broken down by fungi, brown fallen phyllodes of active species will be just as active 6 months later..remember there are ancient snuff seeds found in andean mummy tombs which still have the tryptamines detectable..these are very dry conditions..when you have un-dried material of a plant (and this applies also to bark) it can contain various compounds, free tannins still in a state of semi condensation, alcohols, and more importantly chlorophyll, which can interfere with standard extraction procedures (like at the nexus) and render it in some cases totally or partly unextractable, depending on procedure and conditions..a methanol extract will get everything..if you want to know what's really in a plant..but generally it is good standard procedure, depending on what compounds you're after, to dry material prior to any kind of acid/base manipulation extraction..

and remember, google is your friend...
TLC Kits are out - link here!

always happy for the appreciation of plants Holographic You...
and look forward to reports..
.

just a few things to consider in regards to comparing photos, as they can sometimes be decieving.. the quality of camera used, as well as the light and contrast settings can interfere with the amount of colour picked up in a photo.

there are many cases where i've found the flowers look noticeably more pale in their photos than the actual plant itself.. and also vice versa. some cameras may not be good at picking up the full colour spectrum or may intensify it..this i think should be taken into account too when comparing photos of plants on google images.. I'm not saying that the paler varieties aren't out there as we all know how variable this genus is, but a lot of the photos on the internet would be taken with cheap cameras that may do the plant's real appearance a slight injustice..the contrast of the photo in the OP reminds me of this phenomena (notice the glow in the veins of the phyllodes)... the presence of light may add an illusion of something being more white than it normally appears

the other thing i've noticed is that the phyllodes seem to vary so much in size with oxycedrus (sometimes being only a cm in length) that they could obscure one's perception of flower size

with the exception of the hybrid I posted earlier I am actually yet to see a form of oxycedrus around victoria which doesn't have flowers on the more lemon coloured spectrum .. i'd be interested to know whether the paler forms are common in victoria. and yeah it does look a lot like mucronata but the sharpness of the needles was a pretty certain confirmation for me.. much more painful than touching mucronata

i'd also like to remind people that my results were likely negative due to seasonal or weather conditions. out of 3 tests done, all were performed during flowering, and one was after rain. plants were reasonably small - and I attribute this perhaps to being specimens growing in regenerative forest after bushfires. The extractions mainly focused on the spikes rather than stems which may be more desireable. I would prefer to test more mature specimens when they aren't flowering in summer when it gets very dry in victoria.

this plant would be a marvelous one to crack as it grows absolutely everywhere in victoria..

below a photo of an oxycedrus with very small phyllodes.. making the flowers look a little larger than they actually are.. followed by the same specimen in differen't light (notice the seemingly more pale flowers) found around the dandenong ranges... yet to test

lovely pics, as always, acacian thanks

in section Juliflorae, paler flower forms seem to be the rarer (and may correspond to more alkaloids)..
i agree pics can change colour a bit..also flowers change colour over time..
there are certainly paler forms of oxycedrus, but i'm not sure about victoria...a lot of areas in victoria, due to
land clearing for grazing, have acacias as regrowth, planted escapes, regeneration, and a lot of hybrid have appeared..so it's very hard in many areas to really know what the original local plants were, and whether or not the acacias are actually really 'native' to that area..it's possible, with some species in some parts, that a single strain seed type has been planted at some point, and spread..which then doesn't represent a truly variant population..

as well as strain/seasonal, it's worth noting again, as was mentioned in the info thread, that with some species there is 'individual' variation..for example when testing phyllodes of a few plants of the same population growing near eachother, some have alkaloids, while others don't..and yes, they are individuals

WOW, the ones around the Dandenong ranges do look quite drasticly different to the ones found in Gippsland that I uploaded.
I live very close to the ranges and for a few months I have been trying to find one of these oxy x muc hybrids to either collect seeds or stike cuttings but with no such luck, I havent even come across an oxycedrus for them to breed with... I'm clearly in the wrong suburbs but to be honest, I dont spend a whole lot of time up there before craving a devonshire tea with heaps of jam!

Such a beautiful tree I would love to have one of these in my yard,
Literally breathtaking beautiful!!!

yeah I love oxycedrus its a stunning little plant