Just how active are Gymno's?

[macrocosm]

Now ive read a lot about certain Gymnocalyciums that contain active compounds such as mescaline. Most of this information is found on sites where there are trying to sell the cacti ,so im sure its slightly one sided and any information on Argentinan traditional use of Gymno's is sketchy at best. Being reletivly slow growers compared to trichs i can see why there is not a lot of info about this as it not practical to grow them for this purpose.

 My question is has anyone actually used Gymnos such as baldianum, gibbosum or quehlianum or know of info about them being used in a tradition sense?
 
If so what where the results?

cheers

[JRL]

My guess would be the amounts of active compounds would be insignifagent.

[winder]

My limited experience is that these are somewhat more difficult to grow without rotting.

Globular cacti just do not seem to grow quickly.

According to one book of mine, 10 years outdoors and a 6-inch glob is all you will have.  A Trichocereus should give you 6-8 ft in that 10 years.

[macrocosm]

My limited experience is that these are somewhat more difficult to grow without rotting.

 Well funny you should say that, as say you have a gymo that does rot and its reached a reasonable size and cannot be saved, one comes up with the question ive asked  :?:

 :wink:

[Jacko]

Never heard of, seen or otherwise run across any reports of Gymno. assays.  There are a few beautiful species of Gymno that are increadibly trippy to lood at, what with a slight purple/blue tint to the flesh.

[M S Smith]

There are a nice number of Gymnos with mescaline, but all of the finding so far are seriously insignificant.  I can dig up the names, numbers, and references later if you are still interested.

Can you point me in the direction of the comments that mention traditional use?  Is it at the site that sells them?  Where?  Got a link?

I've never come across even any ethnobotanical use, much less any sort of entheogenic use.  Sound suspect.  

~Michael~

[macrocosm]

Well that answers my question...thanks Michael.

 The coments on the site where basicaly this cactus contain mescaline such as here >http://www.naturensdroger.nu/sv/dept_165.html which i guessed were a bit of a sell point for the cactus and your info backing that up. I suspected by the lack of info out there that this may have been the case.

 As for where i got the idea of native use of gymo's was the fact that a few sites are listing them along side the trichs and lophs under mescaline containing cacti. So when i say sketchy i mean as in i know they come from Argintina and they contain mescaline, sorry to get your hopes up there.

Yes it may have been a bit of a leap on my behalf, hey one can only hope!

[Stonehenge]

If your cactus has begun to rot you may be able to cut away the rotted parts and grow what's left. Be sure to let the cuts callous over before you put it in soil.

Stoney