Psychoactive plants illustrated

Inspired by Josep Lluís Berdonces i Serra’s Guía de las plantas psicoactivas, here’s our own short guide to ten common psychoactive plants and one famous psychedelic mushroom. It’s just a sample, you understand. Click on “more photos” links under each image to get more Tamara’s pictures from Shutterstock.

1. Amanita muscaria, fly agaric, amanita matamoscas, мухомор красный. Main psychoactive compounds: muscimol, ibotenic acid.



Fly agaric (more photos)

dunes by day and by night

Yet another report from the dunes.
The cracked and apparently dry surface above is the bottom of a former large pool of rainwater, sort of temporary pond. We saw it containing some water just a few days ago; and it was a surprise to me to find all the water gone when we went that way on Saturday.
However, when I went down there, I found that the water didn't go very far yet, there was a layer of very slippery mud just under the surface, maybe two centimeters deep of so. Judging by the marks, I was not the first person to slip there; fortunately, I didn't fall, but my (almost) new walking shoes had to get their first wash afterwards.

pea plants — tendrils

I guess I’d better give them something to cling to before they suffocate each other

More pea tendril pics at Shutterstock

tendril

Between two rains went to Cambridge Uni Botanic gardens yesterday. I don’t know which plant exactly is that — although both me and Timur like green greenhouses there, he tends to drag me through “rainforest” bit pretty quickly, because it’s damp and hot there. So there is no time to trace the creeper plants to their roots and little name plates next to them. I have a very vague impression that it belonged to passionflower plant — red species (Passiflora coccinea), but I can’t be sure.

Various tendrils on Shutterstock

Oncidium

original plan was to go to Wandlebury for a little walk or something. but soon as we got off the front porch it started to drizzle, so went to Scotsdales. kids like it there because there are fish and some pets to look at and I like it because I can buy myself a new flower every time. this time the orchid gallery had some plants there that I immediately labeled as "suspiciously cheap" to which Yuri (I think it was him) added "going all the way up to outrageously expensive".

the plant of the picture is from suspiciously cheap end of the spectrum - 3.99 I think it was, cheap for a tall bright orchid.

And another bit of useless information learned today was its name - Oncidium. I hope writing it will help me remembering it.

and we did go to Wandlebury after that, too. Heavy rain only caught us on the way home.

false cherry of Cambridge

Prunus pseudocerasus cantabrigiensis, woul you believe it. meaning something like "false cherry of Cambridge". blooming today in University botanic garden of(surprise!) Cambridge.

I don't know, maybe it's not that strange, the garden is old, there must be a few plants that originate there (I even found a reference to an article dedicated to such plants). But it definitely was a surprise to read this name on a little plaque.