Pachycereus pecten-aboriginum

Cawe Pachycereus pecten-aboriginum Cactus 4-hydroxy-3-ethoxy- phenylethylamine... 

Cawe (Pachycereus pecten-aboriginum) is yet another species of hallucinogenic cactus, which grows in Mexico. It is also a columnar cactus, growing up to 35 feet in height. It is known as Cawe or Wichowaka to the Tarahumara. Studies have identfied 4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenylethylamine and 4-tetrahydroisoquinoline alkaloids as the probable psychoactive constituents. 

Consider chemistry. What are isoquinolines These are chemical structures built around a two-ring compound. This compound, Isoquinoline, consists of a benzene ring and pyridine ring fused together at a specific bond. There is a pattern of substitution that gives an isoquinoline its absolute definition. Thus, for example, Salsoline is an isoquinoline, which is a major component of the Pachycereus pecten-aboriginum plant. 

Pachycereus pecten-aboriginum (Cactaceae) aps 15,127 78 Salsola arbuscula (Chenopodiaceae) ber 67,878 34 Salsola kali (Chenopodiaceae) book 6 Salsola pestifera (Chenopodiaceae) iant 2, 86 85 Salsola richteri (Chenopodiaceae) rr 16, 86 80... 

Hammada articulata (Chenopodiaceae) apf 48,219 90 Pachycereus pecten-aboriginum (Cactaceae) aps 15,127 78... 

After the discovery of mescaline in the San Pedro cactus, it was soon found in other tall, columnar Trichoceri as well as in a Stetsonia species from South America, in Cereus jamacaru from Brazil, and in the giant Pachycereus pecten-aboriginum of Mexico. (The Mexican cactus contains another psychoactive compound—pectenine—which also appears in the Camegiea gigantea of the U.S. Southwest, where it is called "carnegine. ... 

The Mexican cactus Pachycereus pecten-aboriginum has been shown to contain salsoline (6 R = H, = Me) and the new bases isosalsoline (6 R = Me, R = H), the isomeric arizonine (7) (which has the same orientation of oxygen substituents as is found in tepenine), and heliamine, which is 6,7-dimethoxy-1,2,3,4-tetrahydroisoquinoline. Salsoline (6 R = H,R = Me) and salsolidine (6 R = R = Me), on treatment with ethylene oxide, afford the/3>hydroxyethyi compounds (8 R = H, R = OH) and (8 R = Me, R = OH), and these have been converted into a series of esters by reaction with acid chlorides. The jS-chloroethyl compound (8 R = H, R = Cl) has been shown to decrease... 

Cereus pecten-aboriginum Engelmann, syn. Pachycereus pecien-aborigi-num (Engelmann) Britton and Rose, contains pectenine (identical with carnegine) (24). 

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