Friends, the offer is being paused at the moment because the LC-MS is down, it is in need of maintenance which is quite expensive and we are waiting for a donation from a specific person who promised they'd do it but it's taking longer than expected. As soon as the maintenance is done as the instrument is up and running, I'll post in this thread again and you guys can send me samples again to test plants of interest

In the meanwhile, yeah TLC is def a great tool I recommend anybody to learn how to use!

Hey dude,

i would like to know if the service is UP ? Should it be possible for us to participate ?

Cheers

Hey friends!

The instrument just arrived and it will probably take until the end of the month for it to be installed and the methodology adapted to this new MS.

So in about a month we should be able to test Nexian samples again. Check back this thread in april!

Thanks Endy, i'll prepare my samples

Cheers

awesome news!

can I send a sample of what I believe is Aminita Muscaria but not 100% pos...

Peganum harmala root extraction:

Due to severe personal time constraints, I have not written this up for a year and a half. hopefully the GCMS results of the samples posted (and received) last year have been returned.

I haven't had the time to work out how to insert images in-line - and hence I am pasting the text below, and hopefully attaching the PDF version with inline images.

Materials and Method
Materials:

Coffee grinder
Dried Peganum harmala roots.
Sodium carbonate
Sodium hydroxide
Sodium chloride (non-iodised rock salt)
Water
Vinegar
Paper towels
Fine tea pot filter
Smooth tea towel
8mm Stainless steel spatula
150mm glass stirring rod

Method:

All steps were accompanied by Tripping Daisy's albums "Bill", "I am an Elastic Firecracker ", and "Jesus Hit Like the Atom Bomb". This is significant, because whenever I listen to this music (which is fairly often) I recall this, my first exploration into the wonders of isolating certain harmala alkaloids from raw herbal material!

Roots were harvested 2-5 years prior in late winter/early spring (when repotting) from container-grown plants grown in potting mix and pumice. The roots were rinsed of most extraneous matter when fresh, then dried in a domestic hot water cupboard. At the time of extraction, there appeared to be some <1mm diameter spherical fungal fruiting bodies on them following storage in a sealed plastic bag.
Root diameter was from ~5mm down to fine root hairs <1mm in diameter. The relative proportion of root diameters was not recorded. The total weight of dried roots was 26g.

The steps outlined in https://wiki.dmt-nexus.m...on_and_Separation_Guide were used as a guideline, as follows:
Roots were powdered in a domestic electric coffee grinder until fine airborne powder was present. Some larger root sections were not ground so finely

The root powder was brought to the boil and simmered lightly in water + vinegar as per the above link <<how much?>> in a stainless steel pot for 15-30 minutes. The liquid was filtered through a fine stainless steel tea filter and the filtered liquid retained. The marc was returned to additional water + vinegar. This process was repeated five times, until there was very little yellow coloration in the liquid.

The acidic aqueous extractions were combined and filtered through coffee filters, paper towels and fine cloth tea towels. This final filtration process took several hours due to the very fine particle size.

Following the final acidified aqueous extraction, the liquid was combined
and reduced to 500ml by gentle simmering, then poured into a 500ml jar.

Sodium carbonate powder was added to the to liquid in small amounts using a small stainless steel lab spatula. Some frothing of solution was observed along with some clouding of the solution.
NaOH was then added to further basify. Litmus paper showed that NaOH definitely increased pH by ~2 points - admittedly difficult to tell with the paper and comparison chart in use.

The liquid was filtered through double-layered coffee filters, and the solids retained. (The filtrate was retained for further basification, labelled "Base #1"

The coffee filters with the filtered solids were placed into 100ml vinegar and hot water added to ~400ml and were vigorous pressed/agitated with a glass stirring rod in order to dissolve all solids.

The liquid was filtered through double-layered coffee filters; although the liquid appeared clear, some dark solids were caught in the filter.

The filter paper and solids were discarded, and the liquid retained for Manske process crystallisation. The total liquid volume was 575ml.

The liquid was heated to simmering, and 69g non-iodised salt was added to the solution, and within 2 minutes was poured into 2 jars to cool to room temperature, and then placed in a refrigerator.

After approximately eight hours of refrigeration, the solution and crystallised solids were filtered through double coffee filters.

The filtered solids were rinsed with the recycled filter liquid in order to concentrate the crystals into the base of the coffee filter. The filters were placed into a hot water cupboard with a toothpick to keep the filter paper open in order to speed the drying of the crystal "mush" in the middle.

Following desiccation the crystals were scraped from the filter paper and weighed. 1.545g of harmala alkaloid salts were recorded.

These solids were dissolved into boiled water. The filter paper was rinsed and the liquid combined.

Sodium bicarbonate was added in order to precipitate (assumedly predominantly) harmine freebase, and left to settle for ~6 hours.


The supernatant liquid was sucked out using a large syringe, then gently decanted. Most of the solids remained settled in the bottom of the flask.
Sodium carbonate was added to the remaining liquid in order to (presumably) precipitate harmaline freebase. There was no apparent clouding of the solution. NaOH was then added to the solution in a further attempt to precipitate harmaline . No localised clouding was observed at all when adding solid NaOH. This reinforces the reports that harmaline is not present in P. harmala roots.

The acidification/basification/Manske process was repeated 4 times. A pale beige freebase powder resulted, with a weight of 1.544g

Based on the above, a yield of ~5.94% of harmala alkaloids of unknown purity and profile appears to have been attained using these materials and method.

The next step is to have this extract analysed, after which conclusions may be drawn and further discussions and recommendations future experiments may be made.

<<Edit 22/3/19: Endlessness has received confirmation from the lab that the extract was analysed as being 51% harmine, no harmaline and the remainder being inactive salts and/or residual water.

This is equivalent to a yield of ~3.02% - call it 3% - harmine from these roots. This confirms previously published reports that the roots contain harmine, but not harmaline, n contrast to the seeds of P. harmala, which contain harmaline and harmine.

Obviously this work needs to replicated in order further elucidate the content of P. harmala roots. It must be pointed out that the intention was to isolate alkaloids that are able to be isolated using Manske NaCl crystalisation.
It is obvious that there were other harmala alkaloids present due to the UV flouresence of the supernatant liquid that was (eventually) discarded after the filtering out of harmine crystals. It would be very interesting to have a raw salt extract from roots analysed to see which other harmala alkaloids are present. This would be especially relevant for those who wish to make a raw tea of the roots for consumption, rather than extracting the harmine: What else is in there? What are the potential benefits be of these other compound? what are the potential risks?

Definitely interested in this, I'll just post up here and wait for an update

Hi i got some cold pressed caapi juice that i would like to get analyses.

Plant material cannot be analysed. You have to prepare some kind of extract.

The juice will also need processing, at the very least so it doesn't go mouldy in transit.

Still waiting for the LC-MS to be operational, will keep you guys informed.

They indeed will not receive directly plant material but acqueous extraction (like ayahuasca) is good enough, we have tested that before without a problem. If it is kept well before shipping and is in a properly closed container, it should get here before it molds or similar.

I would love to see an Acacia Floribunda extract tested... for some reason it hasn't caught on here in Oz and people keep going for the same old well known trees. Floribunda however has been planted by mass in urban areas and is easy to grow quite quickly. It is a good phyllode source - meaning no excuse for trunk bark harvest and since it is so widely propagated in urban areas some healthy pruning is not only good for the trees but means no disruption to ecosystems in the wild...

Isn't the floribunda known to be variable? IIRC some strains are good, while others are inactive. So maybe that's why it hasn't caught up.

I have two plants in my garden and they're fast growers indeed, but I believe they're the less active / inactive variety. One grew from seed to two feet within a season and that was in a cool climate.

Its not really sure whether variability is an area/soil thing or whether its certain strains. And if it is a strain thing don't really know what traits constitute an 'inactive strain' yet.. In certain areas they are highly consistent while in others they are inactive.. I remember in Melbourne the ones in the city were always inactive but as soon as you got a bit further out they were all great - I feel like it could be a soil quality thing. Either way when they are good they are good so its definitely worth growing as a candidate and the extracts themselves are very interesting and worth analysis.. I find them very sedative compared to other cleaner and more popular trees

What makes you think that it might be an inactive strain? In my experience the active and inactive ones look very similar .. the only characteristic I found to be slightly different (when working with them down in the yarra/danenongs) was the variable phyllode width on the active ones .. but then I know up north in the coastal areas there are highly active ones that don't necessarily have the broad phyllodes .. i think it also hybridizes with mucronata and those I found to be active (although i am not 100% sure if it was a hybrid between the two thats my best guess)

Would be a very interesting one to crack..

Hello everybody!

So we have the new LC-MS, they are still doing preliminary tests and tweaking the method, but they said we can already receive the samples, as long as people are not in a rush to get the results.

Some people had sent me pms before asking about it but I received a lot of pms and I have a hard time finding who exactly wrote to me in the past months, so please use this thread to inform me on any samples you want to send.

So let me reiterate how this will work, what you need to do so I can test the samples:

1- The test needs to serve the community, not only a personal curiosity. So ideally send more than one sample, comparing some variable or other (extraction method, growth condition, clean up method, plant part, phenotype, whatever). Another possibility is testing different trees of the same species... I will only test single extracts of plants that we have very little info of, like previously untested plant species, or species with just a single published test or rumors that need more confirmation, etc

2- We need as much info on the tree/plant as possible, so ideally we need good detailed pictures of the plant, general location (no need to be precise), info on harvesting and extraction method, yield, etc.

3- Please do all the gathering of info and extract and post it here when you have everything ready, and after this is done, I will pm you with info on where to send sample

Thanks !

Hey, Many Thanks Endlessness, what a good news

I have 2 samples to be analyzed from New Caledonia.
Main goal is to know if there are betacarboline in A. Simplex to update the old info.
Compared as first analysis, i used xylene for a larger spectrum extract.

Lower trunk bark strips have been harvested from a 40-50y old with a diameter of ~50cm. Scars have been masticated for health recovery with mastic scar, earth, and herbs around.
The tree sat at a dozen of meter of the beach and is above 15m of height. In the few days before there was 3 or 4 day of rain on the 02/10/2018 (february).

Bark have been dried and weighted 150gr. it have been powdered then extracted.

2 extractions method have been used, a classical AB (Cybs) with 50gr of bark, and a AB drytek (Q21Q21) with 25gr of bark.
Solvent used was xylene.
For Cybs AB, xylene have been evaporated in a dish for month to leed a clean orange/reddish goo.
For Drytek, xylene have been bacskalted with vinegar then based with sodium carbonate and pulled with acetone then evaped during few month, leading to a solid brownish goo.
Samples have been stored in fridge and labelled as OUANO01 - Drytek & OUANO1 - AB

Total yield of extraction is 4,2%

Th First pull yielded respectively :

Drytek : 960mg
AB : 930mg

other pull were combined and yielded 1,3g

Many thank Endlessness for the update and the proposed service it serve us a lot

Cheers

I have a sample I would like to have tested if possible. It is an oily crystalline goo exctract of Digitaria sanguinalis, an extremely common form of Crabgrass that reportedly contains appreciable amounts of 5-MeO-DMT at least, a substance of which reliable plant sources seem to be quite rare, and potentially N,N-DMT and other active tryptamines as well. Information on this plant's alkaloid profile seems to be extremely limited. I've found only a couple posts hinting at one possible bioassay, with one confirmation of the presence of 5-MeO-DMT referenced in Trout's notes being the only confirmation I am aware of.

The grass was collected in late April, in a high desert ecosystem with an elevation above 5000ft. It was on the edge of a sidewalk growing through a graveley patch that would receive strong sunlight for most of the day. This species seems to prefer growing in rocky terrain. The other grasses began to expose their seeds within the next few weeks after my small harvest. Unfortunately a scale was not available at the time so the weight of the initial plant material is unknown, but it was not a tremendous amount. A sandwich baggie was stuffed pretty full of the fresh green leaves and reddish stems. Some seeds were saved for later.

The extraction process was a fairly simple process that many seem to prefer for wider-spectrum Phalaris extracts. The grass was cut into small pieces and boiled into an acidic aqueous tea, this was performed twice and the two water extracts were combined. This was evaporated down to a residue, mixed with excess sodium hydroxide, and left to dry completely. Once dry, without breaking up the dried residue, two pulls of 100mL heated 70% isopropyl alcohol were performed. These were combined, reduced, and frozen overnight to precipitate some oils and waxes and whatnot and let particulates settle to the bottom.. Decanted off from this, the alcohol was evaporated in a double boiler until it was under 20mL, then further evaporated slowly at room temperature. This left behind an oily orange/brown crystalline substance that smells strongly of indole. TLC testing was inclusive but user error and expired reagents are two things that may have contributed to this, as well as the impurity of the sample.

In-depth extraction details and additional pictures here.

I am extremely curious about this plant's potential because it is incredibly prevalent, with many places in the US considering it an invasive weed.

Yes this can be tested, pm me.. Chimp Z says this is not crabgrass though, in your thread.

Has anyone submitted Digitaria ciliaris yet? It's essentially everyone's lawn grass in my region

@endlessness I believe the plant Entheogenerator posted is Bromus Diandrus.

I'm not sure if mycosis has posted their grass.

@Mycosis would you be able to post pix of your grass maybe in the Crab Grass thread?
Just to make sure it's not Bermuda grass or Brome.
They're easily confused.