Not sure if this is the right place to ID request acacia species so please move if necessary.

Have have this beautiful giant in my backyard, just wondering what species it is and whether it contains active alkaloids?

Loc: South Eastern Australia, metro/inland

Thanks

For the sake of future searches, with advice from elsewhere, I can confirm this is Acacia Floribunda.
Here are some more recent pics I took of the phyllodes as well. Give away is apparently the lack of glands at the base of the phyllodes.

Hi rock,

Floribunda flowers in winter, so I'm guessing these photos were taken in winter?

I wanted to reply to your other thread regarding acacia and ehrlich reagent, but I can not post in that forum.
I've never used ehrlich on an acacia phyllode or bark, so I can't tell you whether a colour change occurs, or whether some of the other compounds in plant material interfer with the colour change, or whether the percentage content of indole alkaloids in acacia is high enough to trigger a positive (sensitivity of test).

What I can tell you is that not all floribundas contain indole alkaloids. This has been documented many times on this site and other sites such as sab. I assume you have read the 100 page "improving acacia information thread"? It's a must if you are going to get right into acacias.

Also, if you are intending to characterise many different acacias with regard to alkaloid content, you are better off getting yourself a tlc kit. You only need 1-2 square cm of phyllode material to test. The big advantage is that you get to see which acacias have nmt, which have dmt, and which have both. You also get a rough idea of the relative quantities of both alkaloids.

Hope that helps.

Hi rock,

To answer the next question you posted in "bunk police ehrlich reagent acacia test" thread, yes you are better off using fresh bark and phyllodes. I can confirm that once the tree is dead, and it remains in its normal environment, the alkaloid levels drop with time. This is probably due to cell lysis and leaching due to rain water.
Use fresh stuff, or recently dead dead stuff.

Mods, if you see fit, please move my last 2 posts to the relevant thread. I can not post there.

They were taken on October from memory, so mid-Spring.

I've read parts of that thread, and it seems the alkaloid content is highly dependent on flowering time as well as recent rainfall...though I'm not exactly sure why this is??


Sounds good, I'll get onto that.

So if I harvest some fresh, live plant material, does that mean I need to extract it ASAP? Or do the bark and phyllodes keep if stored for a while? I say this, as I've just pruned a few small branches off the A. Floribunda, and started separating the phyllodes.

Yes, alkaloid levels vary with season, weather and rainfall, or at least that's the general consensus.
That floribunda flowering in October is a little late, but since I'm far from an expert, it may be right. It certainly looks like a floribunda.

No, you do not need to extract immediately after harvest. Material that is harvested, dried, shredded or ground, vac packed, then stored in the freezer will be fine for at least a year. And I suspect you do not need to be that thorough.
Don't store your material out in the sun and rain and you should be right.

Ok sounds great. And in terms of drying, does it need to be completely moisture free, the way mushrooms do or will dry-ish be sufficient?

Difficult to say if completely dry is necessary.
But if you want to be certain that a mould or fungus won't grow on your material, then it would be better to dry the stuff completely (to a constant weight), before storing in packaging without air.
That's my take on it anyway.

I've harvested about 400g of green phyllodes and bundled them up in this mesh stuff and hung it under the carport, should this be an adequate dry method? I do have an electric dehydrator, but wasn't sure how big handfuls of leaves would go in it.

Also, I assume this left over branchlet material would also be active? In which case, should I strip the bark or given that there isn't much meat on them, should I just chop it all up and extract it as is?

Nothing wrong with that drying method. Don't let it get wet.
A dehydrator would work as well.
Placing in shallow trays, in the oven at 50-60 degrees with the door open would also work.

You could do two things with the twigs and small branches. Either grind up and treat it as bark or take to it with a Stanley kniife and remove the outer bark. The latter is time consuming and fiddley.

Cool, so I was right not to dispose of it. I'll probably do a mix of both grinding whole branchlets if small enough, or stripping the bark if it's not too fiddly. I'll extract these up separately to the phyllodes in the name of science.

As for the drying, it's been a couple of days and they don't seem to be making much progress, might have to switch to a dehydrator or oven.

Yep, extracting them separately will allow you to gain a bit of extra knowledge about the tree.
If you are unsure about the alkaloid content, then you might prefer extracting 100g first, rather than the whole lot.
If the tree contains nothing, then you would have wasted time, effort and solvent, working with large quantities.
This is why I mentioned thin layer chromatography to you earlier. Minimal time, effort and solvent.

Roger that, I've got 100g set aside for a test run.

Drying is going well so far, just doing it in batches with the dehydrator, it only takes half a day on 68C. The phyllodes become slightly more pale but don't lose their green colour or turn brown, but definitely feel dry and crisp.

My blender gets them down to a very fine consistency, not powder, but kinda like loose leaf lemongrass tea.