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Hello obodaour!

Subscribed!

I'm always interested in getting a few more plants.

AtGS - none of those are the seedlings.  I still have about half a dozen of those but with the general neglect I've given them over the last 5 years or so their only about 6" tall at best.  It's really only been in the last year that they've started to look healthy after I forced them into full sunlight with no preparation.  Eventually I'm going to tear out the other side of the yard, which is 10x larger, so at that point those will go in the ground too.  At this point I think I'm going to put the whole collection in the ground.

Sh - I did spend time around poppies too, but no more.  And if you look closely you can see a little poppy that sprung up next to one of the cacti in the back.  I don't really have time to mess around with this stuff anymore, but I amassed so may cactus I had to do something with them!

I tore up the lawn and finished putting these in today.  Many I've had in pots for years and I'm excited to get to put them in the ground.  Somehow, although this was a lawn until just a couple months ago, you can see volunteer squash and a datura growing.  I can't figure out where those came from since its just been lawn there for years and those sprouted before I added any additional plants or soil.  The only daturas I've seen growing near me are about a mile away.

Other than the T. grandiflorus, there are no duplicates.  Most of the ones with no origin listed came from SS.  The "lumberjack" came from a guy on these boards.  (Thanks!  I passed on several that you gave me but I've still got a few!)

I put some in last fall and they are now starting to shoot up a bunch of pups.  They are obviously enjoying the new leg room.  The sceletium had been nearing death and shortly after planting it became entirely covered in round after round of flowers followed by all new big green leaves.

Now I can start on the other side of the yard and  get rid of the other 100 pots!

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Along with some others, there are the following cacti/succlent:
T. peruvianus short spine monstrose
T. grandiflorus (several, from Altman)
T. (unknown from Poots Cactus)
T. bridgesii monstrose
S. tortuosum
T. (unknown Berkeley Botanical Garden)
T. (unknown Altman)
T. pachanoi (Altman)
L schotti monstrose
T. (unknown Altman)
T. peruvianus (from seed)
T. macrogonus (Kak-tall-a-tree)
T. peruvianus (from seed)
T. SS02
T. (unknown...knuthianus?)
T. litoralis (BBG)
T. (unknown from Ohlone Maintenance Man)
T. peruvianus (from seed)
E. grandis (pretty sure mislabeled)
T. (unknown BBG)
T. (unknown OMM)
T. peruvianus (KK338 seedling)
T. huanocoensis
T. pachanoi monstrose
T. chiloensis (BBG)
P. pringlei
T. thelogonus
T. "lumberjack"
T. shaferi monstrose
T. (unknown BBG)

I was trying to load them here but I've faced difficulty.  I mainly wanted to show the odd mutation on a T. grandiflorus I recently picked up from Altman plants.  They're shown in the first four pictures.  It looks like the pupping has gone out of control and the new pups are so covered in aereoles that they are completely covered in fuzz.

edit - Oh yeah, a link would help. . .

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/solar_tea ... FBoAWiHsDY

If that doesn't work, they're under solar_tea in the yahoo photo section.

I also have crystals in many of my cacti but it's mostly because I had the crystals and no where better to keep them.  My favorite is a 8" crystal that I placed in the center of 4 columnar cacti.  Now the cacti have grown so much that the crystal can't be removed.  I'll see if I can get a picture . . .

My guess would be slugs or snails too.  They'll be active in the evening or if you get rain this time of year.  My local slugs aren't drinkers but I've used beer before.  Here I just go pick and stomp.  You can also get copper tape and wrap it around the pot - they can't slide over the copper.
They really do love cacti - they'll crawl all the way to the tip of a four foot cactus to eat the new growth.  I just wonder how they crawl down when they're hallucinating . . .

It is however true that if not the plant itself, cocaine in any form is illegal and seeds of ethrox species could very well contain said cocaine.

This arguement could also be applied to poppy seeds, which often have small amounts of opium coating the seed, if not actually inside of them.  And as we all should now, these are available in every grocery store.  Not to say that the feds wouldn't bust you if they found a bag of poppy seeds on your potting table.

But anyways - There's a PM heading your way, Simple_Simon.  I've got a few of those to give up.

So I picked up the local "independent weekly" paper today and boy was I surprised to see this article in it.  First I thought he was just addicted to Ebay and was doing a play on words with deQuincy's novel.  But no, he was spilling the beans about what is probably the best "drug secret" out there.  
I read it in the Chico (CA) News and Review (www.newsreview.com) published 4/14/05.  It appears the article originally appeared in the Reno News and Review on 4/7/05.  I anxiously await next weeks issue of the Sacramento News and Review to see if they continue to print this article in all of their papers.  I may be mistaken, but I believe the only ebay'er busted for his sales of pods was operating out of Sacramento.
I sent in a letter to to the editor of the Chico News&Review regarding this article and at least one other local tea drinker will also respond.  It seems to me that this was downright irresponsible to publish this article in a town with 70.000+ college students.  The local papers have had several articles on deaths and OD's from opiates lately and now they're giving a few thousand kids a source for illicit drugs.  I bet the ebay dealers are doing great business with their overpriced pods in the last few weeks.  There was also an article in the local paper about the local narcotics task force - the task force stated that opium was expected to be the next major drug in the area.  Perhaps this article was meant to help kick off the opium boom.  (Insert paranoid fantasies about the US supporting Afghan opium here)
I can only speculate on the author's purpose for writing this article, but all reasons that I can think of are rather selfish.  If he wants to quit, he needs to quit.  He shouldn't need his supplier to be arrested.  If he's trying to stop others from following his path, there was no need to mention the ebay source.  If he wants the pod sales policed, he could have contacted law enforcement privately, again without giving out the source to thousands of people who will dive right in and blend up a hundred pods in a smoothie (Hell, if he did 200 I should be able to eat 100 pods!).  Whatever, I'm rambling - goodnight