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Trichocereus bridgesii

Bolivian Torch · Achuma

Andean

NatashaG on Pixabay 1 · CC0

Fast-growing columnar cactus from Bolivia containing mescaline. Popular in both traditional and modern entheogenic use.

ECOLOGY & HABITAT

Grows in the highlands and inter-Andean valleys of Bolivia.

Distribution

Boliviawidely cultivated

TRADITIONAL USE

Used in Andean folk healing traditions

CULTURAL CONTEXT

Often considered more consistently potent than San Pedro by many modern practitioners.

REFERENCES

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Schultes 1979
Modern ethnobotany

Kin & neighbors

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plant

Andean

Anadenanthera colubrina

Cebil

South American tree whose seeds have been prepared into psychoactive snuff (vilca) and brews for at least three thousand years. Closely related to yopo but distributed further south, across the central Andes and the Gran Chaco.

Fast-growing columnar cactus native to the Andes containing mescaline. Central to traditional Andean shamanism for thousands of years.

Tall, blue-green columnar cactus closely related to San Pedro and often substantially more potent — one of the major mescaline-bearing cacti of the central Andes.

Andean shrub whose chewed leaves provide one of the world's most enduring stimulant traditions — sustaining high-altitude work, ritual, and medicine for at least 8000 years before its alkaloid cocaine was isolated and globally misused.

Cocaine

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