jalap and PDR was Re: HERB - Yet another question

[Kathleen Keeler]

Greetings from Agnes
   The morning glory family is considered exclusively New World, so High John
is post 1492 if its found in Europe at all.  _Ipomoea_ is the genus of the
common morning glories and moon vine but also sweet potatoes.  Sweet potatoes
made it to Europe very quickly and were quickly adopted as food.

Most if not all _Ipomoea_ species have ergoline alkaloids in their foliage and
seeds.  Ergot is an ergoline alkaloids--only the morning glory family
(Convolvulaceae) among all higher plants have any ergoline alkaloids, otherwise
they are found in fungi (ergot!) and I think bacteria. The _Ipomoea_ alkaloids
range from highly poisonous to negligibly so, but also tend to be psychoactive
(hallucinogenic).  However sweet potatos are a root tuber that basically lacks
alkaloids--so it depends on what part is ingested from what species how toxic
they are.  In some cases toxicity is known, but there must be 50 species of
_Ipomoea_ in the Americas and the second 25 are poorly known.  Many Central and
South American Indian cultures used the seeds of various species for religious
ceremonies--there is no question you can get a trip very like taking
LSD--psychotic episodes, flashbacks and all--from the alkaloids in morning
glories.  Usually people who eat the seeds survive because they vomit them up
before they do serious damage--apparently it was a tough high for the
Indians--keeping the stuff down so you could see your visions.

If anyone would like references to the technical literature on this, I can get
them.

PDR for Herbal medicine says jalap is _Ipomoea orizabensis_ from Mexico.  What
is weird is that in the header they say "jalap" and in the Leaves Stem and Root
section they begin "False jalap is a twining plant..."  So I am confused why
false jalap is mentioned.  I have several of this kind of problem with the PDR
for Herbal Medicine:  I think some of the pictures are quite misleading, if not
wrong, choice of common names is often going to cause trouble (loosestife),
botanical nomenclatureis misused. I tried calling three times to offer to help
them fix the botanical problems and spent a lot of money on long distance hold,
and promised callback never came.  If any of you know how to effectively
contact them, I was trying to offer my professional skills (professor of
biology) to fix the botanical errors in the book.  It _is_ only the first
edition.

Agnes
In modern life, I have published about _Ipomoea_ species' anti-herbivore
defenses, long ago now.

> High John the Conqueror [sometimes just John the Conqueror or High John]
> is another root that is mostly used magically.  I finally found it listed
> in Scott Cunningham's "Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs" [Llewellyn
> Publications, St. Paul, MN  1997].  He says it is Ipomoea purga or I.
> jalapa, and I think I have also seen it sold as jalap.  It would be
> related to the morning glories and bindweeds, some of which are
> hallucinogenic and/or purgative.  He notes it as poisonous, though I
> thought jalap, if it is the same thing, was not poisonous.  Anyway, I
> know of no medicinal use for it, but it is used in spells for love,
> money, and to break hexes.  Most of the places I have seen it referred to
> make me think it is connected to the voodoo tradition, and thus probably
> from the West Indies.  There are a wide variety of Ipomoea species native
> to Central and South America, some of which have interesting properties.
>

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