Long story short, harmine/harmaline hydrochloride in 5% acetic acid was inadvertently reacted with iron powder. It had been labeled zinc powder and I was distracted so it was an hour before I noticed that the stir bar was clearly not behaving properly and removed the iron from the mixture.
I'm doing a manske on it now to get it in stable form while I wait on an ounce of ultra-pure zinc powder from a friend.

My question is, is there any reasonable basis for me to assume that unwanted alkaloids may have formed by means of the acid and iron reaction. I faintly remember something about iron or copper catalyzing unusual reactions [hydroxylation or something] with ß-carbolines but I cant remember the context of the reactions or which advanced O-chem text book I saw it in.

It was an ounce of harmine/harmaline that was affected, and while I have a quarter kilo of P. harmala seeds on hand, and the next harvest approaching, I would hate to loose such a large quantity. If there is cause to worry I could just accept the loss, I just cant decide if I'm over reacting.

Thoughts?

Not sure about possible reactions but you could test with TLC, that should be easy enough to give you a good idea if something happened

No, its unlikely iron catalyzed any different reactions there. If anything, it would act as a reducing agent similar to zinc. But probably too weak to do the job in this case.

Fe/HCl is common oldschool method for reducing aromatics nitro groups

I have seen beta-carboline ligands used in different metal catalyzed reactions, but not sure what you saw there, if you find it post it here I will give you my take on it

Thanks
Thats the answer I expected, its just nice to have a second opinion