Comprehensive Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants

"Hallucinogens have been utilized to encourage spiritual growth, heighten perception, inspire personal development, or expand reality. Comprehensive Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants discusses the ethnobotany of hallucinogenic plant species, featuring history on how they were used in ancient societies, identifying chemical compounds, and explaining modern medicinal uses and conservation initiatives. This book examines the indigenous medicinal practices of many countries and civilizations, and provides comprehensive and up-to-date information on recent investigations and trends in medicinal plants and aromatics. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of understanding their cultural, country-wide, environmental, and scientific factors. It highlights that studying, evaluating, and utilizing these plants cannot be done effectively in isolation but requires a global perspective. Approximately 120 hallucinogenic plants have been identified globally, although 3,000 plant species have been routinely ingested by humans at some point in history, and only 150 are significant enough to join international trade. Some of the 50 plants covered include Ayahuasca, ginger, kanna, dream herb, iboga, peyote, canary broom, coral tree, catnip, wild rue, kava, mandrake and golden's angel trumpet. Each chapter follows the structure of including information on historical plant use, identification of chemical compounds, and an explanation of the modern medicinal uses. A volume in the Exploring Medicinal Plants series, Comprehensive Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants will appeal to plant scientists, botanists, ethnobotanists, pharmacologists, and those with an interest in alternative medicine"-- Provided by publisher