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Ethnobotanicals Phyllodium pulchellum

tuppingtoncity

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Oct 30, 2025
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Hello everyone! I've done a little reading on Phyllodium pulchellum recently and I was wondering if anyone had any knowledge/experience/input about it's potential activity. For a broad overview of the basic phytochemistry of the plant (as well as demonstrating its capacity to effectively inhibit MAO-A), I would direct y'all to this paper.

In short, phyllodium pulchellum contains a pretty broad spectrum of psychoactive tryptamines as well as a number of β-carbolines that would appear to have the potential for producing an ayahuasca-type effect in one plant alone.

It is important to note a few things; the total alkaloid content if the plant is rather low, and when considering the plant also biosynthesizes a number of completely inactive alkaloids, I would assume that the weight of plant necessary to produce any sort of psychoactive effects would be rather high, and I imagine the peripheral effects of consuming that much plant matter might be rather unpleasant. Additionally, 5-MeO-DMT is one of the major alkaloid constituents of Phyllodium Pulchellum, and I imagine consuming enough of the plant to produce activity in conjunction with the beta-carbolines could be potentially dangerous (hypertensive episode, etc.); Lastly, there is the pharmacokinetic consideration of consuming the beta-carbolines along with the active tryptamines simultaneously, rather than predosing with beta-carbolines. I assume this would result in the rapid enzymatic degradation of a large quantity of the psychoactive tryptamines by MAO-A before it is effectively inhibited by the beta-carbolines present, thus requiring more plant matter (or continuous consumption / two spaced out consumptions of plant matter) in order to produce effects.

Interestingly, it appears to have been used moderately in Chinese herbal medicine and Aryuveda and appears to have some interesting anti-oxidant/hepatoprotective effects - just a cool plant all around!
 
My post in the harmala thread:

Phyllodium pulchellum contains two chemicals that are similar to tetrahydroharmine:

N-methyltetrahydrocarboline

7-methoxy-N-methyltetrahydrocarboline


This plant also contains DMT, 5-MeO-DMT, tryptamine, and N-methyl-3-indoylmethanamine.

Effect of Alkaloids Isolated from Phyllodium pulchellum on Monoamine Levels and Monoamine Oxidase Activity in Rat Brain. Cai, L., Wang, C., Huo, X. K., Dong, P. P., Zhang, B. J., Zhang, H. L., Huang, S. S., Zhang, B., Yu, S. M., Zhong, M., Ma, X. C. 2016. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med, 2016, 6826175. 10.1155/2016/6826175


In one person tetrahydroharmine was similarly hallucinogenic when given in three times the dose of harmaline.

β-carbolines, psychoactive compounds in the mammalian body. Airaksinen MM, Kari I. 1981. Part II: Effects. Med Biol, 59(4):190-211. Studies on the hallucinogenic and other CNS effects


Can someone re-post this in DMT-Nexus's Scientific Papers and Journal Articles forum?

https://forum.dmt-nexus.me/forums/harmalas.90/

 
soulofjaret says it's "like a mix of Bufo and ayahuasca": h‍ttps://www.instagram.com/soulofjaret/p/DW4zSRNlHYG/
I caught ads from this account recently, imagine my surprise when in between goofy ass memes my fiance shows me I see a white man strangeholding some Phyllodium pulchellum talking about paying him to take an "elephant tour" or some shit. I don't trust this guy personally, he can present some meaningful trip reports and studies if he wants and I'll start to give him credit.

Until then, some real oldheads I got to know from the cannabis and enthogen cultivation scenes had interacted with this, as had this person I won't name who used to help me come into contact with "experimental ayahuasca" plants. These are the only two sources I have pertaining to the uses of this plant, as far as I can tell indigenous cultures have likely shyed away from it similar to Ariocarpus retusus or Lophophora diffusa, and why? It appears that they lack desireable psychedelic characteristics while remaining rich in toxic traits. Damn near died playing with some L. diffusa a couple weeks ago thinking I could load it with allylescaline, bupropion, and with residual methamphetamine in my system. I'm just lucky I made it out of that shit, tbh, I fully understand now why you'll see descriptions of L. diffusa's religious use as "mild", it's brutal. I suspect that Phyllodium pulchellum may indicate desireable properties via some preparations and growth practices, but figuring that out is going to be brutal and will inevitably stack a bodycount on it, which I am not trying to be a part of.
 
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