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A rare species of lichen from the rain forests of Ecuador is the first and only lichen found known to contain psilocybin, the same substance that makes you trip from shrooms.
Yost comments:
“In the spring of 1981, whilst we were engaged in ethnobotanical studies in eastern Ecuador, our attention was drawn to a most peculiar use of hallucinogens by the Waorani, a small isolated group of some 600 Indians. Amongst most Amazonian tribes, hallucinogenic intoxication is considered to be a collective journey into the subconscious and, as such, is a quintessentially social event. The Waorani, however, consider the use of hallucinogens to be an aggressive anti-social act; so the shaman, or ido, who desires to project a curse takes the drug alone or accompanied only by his wife at night in the secrecy of the forest or in an isolated house…”
The lichen these two guys were searching for was so rare that not even the Waorani people knew of its whereabouts, and tripping on it definitely was not part of their current practices. The Waorani called it nɇnɇndapɇ and told the botanists their shamans used it only once “some four generations ago when ‘bad shaman ate it to send a curse to cause other Waorani to die.’”
Not so easily deterred, after more intense searching Yost and Davis finally became the first westerners to lay eyes on the nɇnɇndapɇ. They preserved the unique specimen for future analysis, although it would be another three decades before the lichen’s DNA was properly analyzed, proving it was for sure a new species.
A team of researchers led by Michaela Schmull recently named the lichen Dictyonema huaorani and used a technique called liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to determine the chemical compounds. It indeed showed the presence of psilocybin, tryptamine, 5-MeO-DMT, 5-MeOT (5-methoxytryptamine), 5-MeO-NMT and 5-MT.
Source: matadornetwork.com