SKA wrote:Wasn't LSA first synthesized from ergot-alkaloids before it was discovered LSA was present
in Hawaiian Baby Woodrose seeds and Morning Glory seeds? Not sure.
yes, in My Problem Child, specifically the chapter titled The Mexican Relatives of LSD pp.136, Hofmann explains,
"the active principles from the ancient Mexican magic drug ololiuhqui proved to be identical with substances that were already present in my laboratory. They were identical with alkaloids that had been obtained in the course of the decades long investigations of ergot; partly isolated as such from ergot, partly obtained through chemical modification of ergot substances.
lysergic acid amide, lysergic acid hydroxyethylamide, and alkaloids closely related to them chemically were established as the main active principles of ololiuhqui. Also present was the alkaloid ergobasine, whose sysnthesis had consituted the starting point of my investigations on ergot alkaloids.
"my colleagues received my talk with skepticism ... the occurence in higher plants (i.e., in the morning glory family) of ergot alkaloids that hitherto had been known only as constituents of lower fungi, contradicted the experience that certain substances are typical of and restricted to respective plant families.
"Our results were confirmed [by independent labs]. Nevertheless, the skepticism went so far that the seeds could have been infected with alkaloid-producing fungi. That suspicion, however, was ruled out experimentally.