Petunia Violacea (Shanin)

Petunia violacea flowers (Shanin)

Our SHANIN contains only the petals (no stems or leaves) from organically grown plants that are harvested when the plant is in full bloom. It has been described by users traditionaly as “spiritual, peaceful, uplifting, tranquilizing without confusion, very enjoyable.

Petunia violacea (SHANIN) is an attractive violet-flowered species from South America, which produces an abundance of large, funnel-shaped blossoms throughout the summer.

The chemical constituents of Petunia violacea (or any other petunia) are not listed in Dr. Duke's Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases (www.ars-grin.gov/duke/). Its alleged hallucinogenic properties were first mentioned in Plants of the Gods by Richard Schultes and Albert Hoffmann. They report that the plant was used as a hallucinogen by Ecuadorian Indians, and that it induced feelings of levitation or of soaring through the air, which is a typical characteristic of many hallucinogens.

Yet subsequent studies have not revealed any chemicals to account for this effect. In the journal Phytochemistry (1984, Volume 23, pages 2871-2873), in an article titled Petunia violacea: hallucinogen or not? , Schultes reports that using the Dragendorff’s reagent he was unable to detect any alkaloids at any stage in the plant’s development. However, he adds that “ not all hallucinogens are alkaloids, not all alkaloids will react with Dragendorff’s reagent, nor would all alkaloids have been extracted with the extraction methods employed. No absolute conclusion can be reached on the basis of these data; but if there is a hallucinogen in Petunia uiolucea, it is either non-alkaloidal or an atypical alkaloid, or even an alkaloid produced under very specific conditions not reproduced in this study.