World Seed Supply's Guide to Growing Heimia Salicifolia & Myrtifolia

Heimia Salicifolia is an important Aztec herb featured on the statue of Xochipilli.  Several unique alkaloids have been isolated from these heimia species that have been reported to have tranquilizing and anti-inflammatory properties.  Heimia Salicifolia and myrtifolia are extremely similar both in appearance and active alkaloids.  In fact, reports indicate that myrtifolia may be more active than salicifolia despite the popularity and historical significance of salicifolia.  So the information in this guide can be used to grow either species.

With the exception of the fact that the seedlings start out so tiny, heimia is a very easy plant to grow and is good for beginning growers. It can be grown easily indoors and will tolerate a wide range of environments.

GROWING FROM SEED

Heimia seeds are extremely small, like dust.  In nature, the wind would carry Heimia seeds, dropping them on the surface of the soil, where they would eventually sprout. No amount of burying is necessary. It is also a general cultivation rule that the size of the seeds determines how deep the seed should be buried. In the case of really tiny seeds, they should be surfaced sowed, meaning that they should simply be pressed into the surface of the soil allowing light to reach them. Before sowing the seeds, make sure the soil is misted lightly so that the seeds have available moisture to absorb.

After sowing, you want to cover the container with a piece of clear plastic to seal in the humidity. If the soil is moist enough and you mist regularly, they will grow without the plastic, but it makes life much easier. Plus, with the plastic on, you may not have to water because the evaporating water will condense on the plastic and drop back to the soil. If at any point you notice the soil is drying out, simply remove the plastic and mist the soil with a fine mister. This will occur more often if your temperature is higher. Be sure to add the correct amount of water to your soil and then remove the excess water collected on your plastic so that it doesn’t drop back into the soil and cause too much soil moisture. Although mature plants will take as much water as you can give them, I have an unconfirmed suspicion that the seeds can be drowned. A temperature of about 70 degrees F should be fine. Using florescent lights or placing in front of a sunny window will both work for germination and plant growth.

From seed until it is a few inches high, Heimia S. grows painfully slow. Let them take as long as they need. It won’t continue like this forever. In the meantime, just keep the plastic on and make sure the soil stays moist. Be sure to mist if needed. When the seedlings are about 1/2″-3/4″ you can take the plastic off. Continue to keep the soil very moist. At 2 1/2″ it is an ideal time to transplant.

The soil you use in the new pots should be similar to the soil you used for germinating. Have your pots set up beforehand so that you can quickly transfer the seedlings without them spending much time in the open air. When transplanting, the most important thing to consider is to disturb the roots as little as possible. You’re most likely going to have a million roots tangled together, so some disturbance will inevitably occur. Some gentle prodding with a fork might be useful to help separate the roots.

Keep the seedlings out of any intense light and heat as they are especially vulnerable after transplanting. If at any point you notice wilting, make sure to water and put a plastic baggie over them to seal in humidity. You should keep this continually moist. Heimia plants are amazingly resilient to wilting, but they enjoy as much water as you can give them.  Heimia Salicifolia, once established, will prefer partial sun. If under-watered, H. Salicifolia plants will wilt drastically, looking as if they are dead. They may also drop leaves. If you catch it within the first day of this you can almost always bring it back by saturating the soil. Any dead material should be cut back, which will result in a fuller plant.

HEIMIA CUTTINGS

Heimia plants can be reproduced by cuttings from mature plants. But since heimia tends to have woody stems, they can be a little tougher to root than other Mexican entheogens like calea zacatechichi or salvia divinorum.  To minimize the difficulty of the process, it is best to select the newest growth because it is likely to be the softest.  Soft growth roots easier than woody growth.  You also want to use a rooting hormone, which can be either a commercial rooting hormone or a natural tea made of white willow bark (salix alba).  Commercial rooting hormones typically contain indole-3-butyric acid and can be found in powder or gel form. The gel is preferred since it sticks to the stem even in water.

Another trick with rooting heimia salicifolia is to remove all but the top few leaves. This will lighten the load on the plant because it will not have to support so many leaves.  A cutting that has been cut from the support of the roots on a mother plant is like a parent that has lost his or her job.  By sending the kids off to live with grandma, or by trimming off some of the leaves in the cutting’s case, the parent has a better chance of surviving on savings and what little money he or she can scrounge without a formal income.  So in those terms, the cutting can live on stored water and what little water it can draw up through its unrooted stem.  Soft stems usually absorb water quicker, which is probably one reason why they tend to be easier to root than woody stems. For more detailed information on rooting plant cutting, including types of rooting mediums, please visit our article, How to Root Plant Cuttings http://worldseedsupply.org/blog/?p=124

 SHOP OUR STORE FOR HEIMIA SALICIFOLIA SEEDS and MORE

www.worldseedsupply.org

Heimia Myrtifolia

World Seed Supply’s Mandrake Germination Guide

Mandrake (Mandragora Officinarum) is a member of the nightshade family most notable for its use in witchcraft and its mention in the Harry Potter novel series.  Mandrake has a rich folklore that dates back to biblical times. Like other nightshades such as belladonna, brugmansia, datura and henbane, mandrake contains highly toxic tropane alkaloids that can cause complete delirium, vomiting and death.  Mandrake is an interesting plant that enjoys the cold weather and forms a huge taproot.  Fresh roots sell for impressive amounts of money, although dried roots are fairly inexpensive.

Mandrake seeds have a reputation for being stubborn germinators.  In general, nightshade plants frequently have this trait.  When it comes to Mandrake germination, the process is entirely predicated on temperature fluctuations.  The seasonal temperature fluctuations trigger the seeds to germinate.  It is common for species of the Northern Hemisphere to germinate based on a rise from cool temps to warmer temps.  This has led to a germination technique that is called stratification.  Stratification works by placing the seeds in the fridge for a period of several weeks to several months in an attempt to simulate winter.  To stratify your mandrake seeds, take a ziplock or other container of moist sand and place your mandrake seeds inside before placing the container in the fridge.  You can use moist paper towels instead of sand, but paper has a higher tendency to grow mold.  Mold can usually be wiped off without killing the seed, but it is obviously something you want to avoid when possible. Even moist soil will work for this process, but sand has the lowest tendency for mold.

After about a month in the fridge, move your mandrake seeds to a warmer location and plant in a loose, fertile well-draining soil.  Compost works very well.  The subsequent act of planting the seeds in a warmer temperature acts as a seasonal change that triggers the plant’s temperature response, causing the seed to germinate.  But what is interesting about mandrake is that the temperature fluctuation seems to work in the opposite way as well.  We’ve noticed a trend of mandrake seeds planted in the early spring germinating in the following fall if they failed to sprout that spring.  Occasionally, they will even wait until the spring of the following year to germinate.  So it is important not to discard or reuse the soil if you didn’t get 100% germination because it will still contain seeds with the potential for germination.

Another method for triggering temperature responsive germination in seeds is what we callwinter sowing.  Winter sowing simply involves sowing the seeds outdoors during the cooler weather and allowing the natural temperature fluctuation to trigger the seed’s temperature response.  In that case, you can plant the seeds in the ground or in the soil that they will ultimately grow in.  Preferably, you want a location with full sun to partial shade.  There is no need to harden the plants off when you winter sow, and the roots will not be disturbed by transplantation.  Since winter sowing relies on cool temperatures, growers in the warmer zones must resort to stratification. But otherwise, this is our preferred method with mandrake.  It was in our trials with winter sowing mandrake seeds that we noticed the tendency of the seeds to germinate in subsequent temperature fluctuations aside from just the initial one. This phenomenon likely works as a species preservation mechanism.  In the event that a plant does not reach maturity or set seed, it still has backup genetics on deck that are ready to sprout.

You will find that mandrake generally does better in the cool or at least mild weather.  Personal experience and conversations with other mandrake growers have both dictated that warmer temperatures can sometimes correlate with the plant suffering.  In several instances, we’ve had plants lose their leaves.  But what is important to know about mandrake is that the root is the life of the plant. As long as the root is living, the leaves have a good chance of returning.  We have had plants that we thought died during summer return to life in the fall when the weather cooled down a bit.  What actually took place was that the leaves had died back while the root stayed alive below the soil.  Although it appeared that the plants were gone, the living taproot held enough life to allow the foliage to return.

In another instance, we had some indoor plants that lost their leaves.  In this case, it seemed that the reason had to do with an improper root depth.  It is important that the mandrake root not be too deeply buried, or the stems of the leaves will be in greater contact with the soil. If you get any standing moisture, they can easily rot at the stem, causing the entire leaf to die.  As mentioned earlier, a well-draining soil is imperative.  It may be beneficial to put a layer of gravel or perlite at the top in order to improve the drainage specifically where the leaf stems are while allowing the majority of the taproot below to have access to a soil medium that holds a bit more moisture.  Lighting also plays a factor because plants grown in lower lighting conditions will have thinner stems that could rot or snap more easily.  But an ideal planting depth is one where the top of the taproot is about even with the soil.  The taproot may sit slightly above the soil line as well, but you do not want it too far above because it can put extra tension on the stems, which is more of a problem with thinner leaf stems.  As you can imagine, there are numerous factors that could lead to leaf loss. But in all cases we’ve experienced, new foliage was able to grow from a healthy taproot, even when all prior leaves had fallen off.  So again, it is important to know that the root truly is the life of the plant when it comes to mandrake.

Indoor temperatures are usually fine for mandrake since they are mild.  You can grow mandrake fairly easily indoors as long as you use artificial lighting.  Window lighting is probably insufficient and will lead to thin leaf stems.   But a fixture containing two T5 fluorescents is sufficient to support mandrake plants over the winter.  However, you should also remember that mandrake is frost hardy.  So if you have ground space, there is no need to bring them in for the winter.  Depending on your living situation, this may just be a good plant if your indoor growing real estate is already occupied.  And while mandrake may seem like a challenging species to grow, it is important to remember that there is leeway…both in the way that you can still expect germination even from seeds that did not originally sprout and in the way you can still squeeze life from a root that may otherwise seem tapped out.

SHOP OUR STORE FOR MANDRAKE SEEDS 

http://worldseedsupply.org/

Mandrake Grown from Seed

Germination of Cacti Such as San Pedro Cactus, Peruvian Torch and Other Spiny Friends

You see them in your office or local hardware store, maybe even your local Mexican restaurant. But many people never stop to think that cacti actually start out as seeds. I mean it makes sense being a plant and all. But I get the same reaction all the time when I tell people I sell cacti seeds. "Cacti grow from seeds?!?"

The reality is that cacti do grow from seeds, and anyone can grow them. It's not that difficult and is more than rewarding in the end. I warn you though, the hobby of cacti growing and collecting can be nothing short of addicting, and there is a growing community of cacti growers, particularly the Sacred species, which includes San Pedro Cactus, Peruvian Torch, Dona Ana, certain Ariocarpus species and even Peyote, which is illegal in the United States but it extremely coveted and legal to grow elsewhere around the world.

With a growing interest in starting cacti from seed, I see many people asking about how to begin. This method will not work for every species of cactus, but is ideal for those of the trichocereus, carnegiea, astrophytum, obregonia, lophophora and ariocarpus genus. It will work for other cacti seeds as well. The first consideration to make is soil mix. While you can make your own cactus soil mixtures, this is not really worth it for the new grower. Unless your making a large volume of soil mix, it will be more expensive to buy the multiple materials needed when you could easily buy a commercial cactus potting mix. When it comes to commercial cactus soil, I prefer Shultz's and am not a fan of Miracle Grow. If it is the only option, it will serve the purpose. Some growers will add perlite (up to 50%), which is a white, porous volcanic glass that is used for drainage. Its nooks and crannies provide an enormous amount of surface area to hold water without letting the soil get soggy. If I am going to add perlite, I find that it is beneficial to use a mixture such as this for the bottom layer. For the top layer, strain out the larger debris so you end up with only the finer particles.

Your next consideration is the pot. This is not a hard choice. I prefer small Chinese soup containers and other take-out containers. Fill your pot with either cactus soil or the soil/perlite mix so that you leave at least an inch of room left. Use a mister to moisten your soil without it getting soggy. Put about half an inch of the finer (strained) soil above that. The finer layer serves to keep the seeds from landing on any debris that they will have a hard time anchoring their root into. Then mist the top layer before you add your cacti seeds. While the seeds of astrophytum are a little larger, those of trichocereus, ariocarpus and especially obregonia are particularly small. When you look at a san pedro cactus or a peruvian torch, you wouldn't expect that they come from such small seeds. Misting before applying the seeds keeps them from being sprayed away so that they become unevenly distributed. After misting, take your seeds and press them into the surface of the soil. You can crowd them because you will be able to separate them later. Do not cover them at all with soil because cactus seeds need light to germinate.

Cover the whole container with clear plastic wrap. If using a take-out container, you can simply keep the lid on loosely so that air will still get in. Keep your soil temperature at about 70-75 degrees F and provide window light until the seeds sprout. Eventually you can put them under fluorescent lights. The seedlings will not have to be transplanted for at least six months.

For a large selection of ornamental and sacred cacti seeds visit us at:

http://www.worldseedsupply.org/