form of alkaloids in plants?

[bluesaucer]

In what form do alkaloids occur in plants? Freebase? A combination of freebase and some salts? What exactly?

 

[Shakti]

From what I can tell the great majority are in some salt form within plants.

 

[Solipsis]

Yes or in a complex, if in salt form then often a stabilizing one that enables it to permeate and act when necessary.
DMT for instance is naturally found mostly in tannin form, which are the salts of tannic acids if I'm not mistaken.

I think they are often only in freebase form when in some kind of activity, but that happens very fast and there are
transition states involved that may often skip the freebase step. The environment is often aqueous and solubility -
which the freebase has not in water - is pretty important.

 

[Shakti]

Also, the specific salt form I believe is usually a product of reacting with whatever acid or acids are dominant within the plant. Oh, and I'm fairly comfortable saying that the environment is always aqueous, rather than often as solipsis put it, assuming the plant is alive. But, his point is very much correct, alkaloid freebases are very poorly soluble in water, so they would be almost impossible to metabolically synthesize or have any use to the plant if they did somehow show up.