Banisteriopsis muricata

About the product

100% dried Banisteriopsis muricata in small chips. Origin: Ecuador.

Banisteriopsis muricata is a woody climbing vine in the family Malpighiaceae. It grows wild in the Amazon rainforests – in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and neighbouring regions – where it works its way up through the canopy and over time can grow a stem several centimetres thick.

Laws differ between countries. Please check what applies where you live before ordering. Our review of the legal situation in Sweden (in Swedish): Is Banisteriopsis muricata legal in Sweden?

The wood is rich in tannins and has a warm reddish-brown tone that sets the species apart from the paler vines found in the same forests. The colour is clearly visible in the chips.

Among the Quichua people of Ecuador's Oriente, vines of this kind are counted among the plantas maestras, the teacher plants. They are regarded not as material but as someone – with a will, preferences and demands of their own on how they are approached. Knowledge of where the vines grow, when they are harvested and how the stands are tended has been passed on orally through generations, and is in practice inseparable from the forest where it grew.

Chemically, the genus Banisteriopsis is characterised by β-carboline alkaloids, mainly harmine, harmaline and tetrahydroharmine. The genus has long been the subject of ethnobotanical and phytochemical research, but the alkaloid profile of this particular species is still incompletely documented in peer-reviewed literature.