Hi all

After making this discovery I've rushed back to report the findings after registering several years ago. Had to spend 3 days hunting through introductory essays from years ago trying to find myself and remember my username...

After growing P. Viridis for several years an extraction has finally been made, but not by choice, but instead it was forced by the plant or the perfect storm of conditions.

It's a single plant, maybe 1.2M tall. It was grown from a pre-rooted cutting of 20cm. Harvesting was not desired, the growth of the plant was much more important.

The plant was started indoors under red/blue LED lights 3 years ago and moved outside under corrugated shade sheets last year in a very small plastic greenhouse (DIY). Since the move outdoors, it has suffered from regular neglect (only watered when visibly suffering water deficiency, probably every 1-2 weeks), fertiliser burn, weather too hot, humidity wildly varying from one extreme to another, temperatures swinging between 2 and 40 degrees C, fungal infections and most recently scale insects. The plant has never felt the rain.

Most recently, P. Alba was removed from the shared greenhouse (separate pots) leaving P. Viridis on its own. A heavy scale infestation was noted with many ants attracted to some very sticky secretions the plant had somehow left on the floor nearby (leaves also were coated). The plant has been sprayed with myclobutanil (<0.05g) in the last year for fungal issues. The plant was sprayed with polysulfide sulfur a.k.a. lime sulfur (~4g) within the last month to treat the severe scale infection. At some point within the following weeks the plant was mildly disturbed during the evening (shaken) and a significant portion of the leaves on the plant detached and dropped to the floor (green, looking fresh).

The leaves were immediately collected, rinsed under running water and frozen (both for preservation and to rupture the cells to increase yield. Approx two weeks later the leaves were defrosted at room temperature overnight and the residual water frozen to the leaves (from the rinse) evaporated.

These effectively fresh (not dried) leaves weighed exactly 80g (+/- 1g).

Following a method derived and slightly modified from the DMT handbook's extraction method (that used M. Tenuiflora root bark) an extraction was performed. Filtration of acidic solution through was via filter cloth followed by filtration of the organic solvent via quantitative filter paper.

This extraction yielded 270mg (+/- 2mg) of both white and off-white fine, powdery crystals via freeze precipitation for 24 hours (attached) and a small amount (0.1mL?) of yellow/green oil remaining in the evaporation basin after evaporation of remaining solvent. The purification steps in the guide were not performed.

This is a yield of 0.27g / 80g = 0.3375% yield by weight from fresh leaves.

If existing literature is anything to go by, this weight should be mostly N,N-DMT.

Existing literature also mentioned a yield of up to 0.61% dry mass. Assuming these leaves were dried prior to extraction their mass would drop maybe 90% (estimated, anyone got real numbers for moisture content?) and we'd be looking at an equivalent of 0.27g / 8g = 3.375% dry weight equivalent.

This would be insane if true and I refuse to believe it, yet.

Either my estimate of 90% moisture content is wrong and/or the extract is significantly impure.

What could it be contaminated with? Could it possibly be polysulfide sulfur?

Should the extract be dissolved into hydrochloric acid and brought straight back to base? The polysulfide sulfur shouldn't be soluble in water.. but then I wouldn't expect a highly contaminated end product if it was pulled with boiling acidic water.

Advice? Does it need purification? Leave it? How does it look?

The extract looks pretty good, maybe still a bit moistened with solvent?

Recrystallisation might be a good idea. A possible impurity from chacruna is 2-methyltetrahydro-β-carboline; sending a sample for analysis is surely worth considering: Free lab test for your (garden or local) plants !!! Interested??

My experience with viridis finds a huge amount of white fats that are willing to dry to some extent.

On my last experiment I put the leaves in the clothes dryer until crispy, ran through a blender till powderised, and then defatted 3 times, which was still not enough. During extraction I could clearly see a 5mm layer of white fat between the non polar solvent and the basic solution.

Overall yield was >0.7% though, so was worth it in the end.

I was advised by another experienced member to attempt STB with calcium hydroxide next time.

Mmm calcium hydroxide would limit pH to 12.4. I imagine higher pH generated by sodium hydroxide would turn more fats into soaps which cause more emulsion and make it through to the final product. A very thin white band was noted between layers during separation. The final solvent after a run through separatory glassware appeared clean and could be visually mistaken for pure solvent.

That could also explain the wet appearance of what should be dry crystal.

I wonder what "best" procedure is to remove the soap? Probably a room temperature defat at pH 3.5 followed by warm organic solvent pull at pH >12? The soap might cause some product loss if defatted this way though.

Good job on the experimentation, but I'd say that DFZ's suggestion of sending it in to be analyzed is a mighty swell idea.

That does not look like dmt crystallization, your assessment of it being soap is likely.

The yield of that amount of material would be negligible for use, but would be interesting to analyze.

Again, thanks for returning with this, sorry to hear the plant sacrificed so much, maybe she's telling you to treat her better.

To me the extract reminds me of DMT that has crashed out very rapidly, forming many small crystals and being less stable in heat. It has the appearance of not being fully dry or waxy. I've also seen layers that I thought were fats but they turned out to be just DMT flocculating together. The clearer the solution the easier it is to see this.

Personally I would have weighed and vaped some to see how impure it actually is (or isn't).

The product was very quickly precipitated and scraped up to make what's seen in the image.

When a very small residue was put on a spoon and heated, the solid became a clear/light yellow liquid and shortly after produced a reasonably thick smoke.

Based on this evidence I would tend to agree with you, so that's some good news!

pic of psychotria backsalt settling...

edit: pic didn't load.

Those are some funky colours!

On this extract, the bottom acidic layer was brown which turned deep black upon adding the sodium hydroxide. The top organic solvent layer was crystal clear. There was a small emulsion that was separate with careful use of a seperatory funnel and filter paper.

The top of the brown layer had a very thin milky veil after that eventually disappeared when separation was complete.

Recrystallised twice, with acetone and naphtha. No residue left behind. Keep getting the same results. It appears to be all DMT.

So this P.Viridis contains a large amount of DMT basically?

Is there an agreed upon average % that P. Viridis is usually supposed to have or is it all over the scale?

Hey Innocent,

Got a pic?

I'd love to see how it turned out. I have some p. viridis and p. nexus leaves that I have been meaning to mess around with, but never have. Maybe I'll give it a shot!

I'll toss ya a vote for the effort of looking through introduction essays to find your old username.... but it is funny...... you remember your intro, but not the name you used?
You seemed to have put a decent bit of effort into researching the expected yield and estimated biomass. But, it's hard to say with certainty what the dry weight would have been unless the experiment is repeated, starting with the same wet weight, dehydrate the leaves, record the exact dry weight, and then reproduce exactly as before.

Either way, very interesting! And maybe a happy accident? I have a bunch of acacia bark from a confusa that I lost during an unpredicted freeze. I have 2x 5 gallon buckets full - but have yet to do an extraction.

Take Care,
ACY

Edit: Looks like that vote boosted yah over. Welcome to full membership

I like this one .

I can't find any research quoting above ~0.3% for dried mass

This was about 3% assuming 90% water (or ~0.3%ish on *wet* mass)

Thanks for the full membership!

I've attached a photo of after the recrystallised compound was dried. Was very excited yet concerned to see that the results from wet mass were what researchers obtained from dry mass.

It seems that many species produce higher alkaloid levels after being stressed - San Pedro with mescaline for example.