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How do I tell the seeds of different Anadenanthera species apart?
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There seem to be many Anadenanthera seeds; A. colubrina, A. peregrina, and varieties of both species. How can I tell what I really have? |
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| A: |
One of the first things to know is that A. colubrina and A. peregrina are identical as seeds and as seedlings until the trees are a few years old.
Both A. colubrina and A. peregrina seeds can be purchased from ethnobotanical companies. But there are several common problems with the identification of these seeds, and unfortunately, wrongly identified seeds are listed in some catalogs.
Some companies have sold "fat" or "fat-type" A. colubrina seeds, which appear to not be Anadenanthera of any species. There is no such thing as a "fat" Anadenanthera seed. It is unknown what these seeds actually are, but they could contain toxins that are undesirable for human consumption.
Many of the A. peregrina seeds for sale by vendors are actually A. colubrina. This situation arose, in part, because of confusion about what species can grow in Brazil, where the seeds are often harvested. Because the seeds are identical, it's difficult to know how many companies are selling correctly identified A. peregrina, but it may not be many. See Shaman Australis's description of this problem.
Even some of the seeds in Erowid's Anadenanthera image vault may be wrongly identified because of incorrect information provided by those who submitted the photos. We do our best, but have made errors on this point in the past.
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[ Anadenanthera ]
[ Plant ID ]
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