Rather more specifically, its the Wahgi valley area in papua new guinea that I want to visit, to do some research, taking with me, given the unlimited funding, both LC-MS, GC-MS and one of those portable NMR machines along with some of my glassware and solvents. And of course some TLC plates and staining reagents.
There is a mushroom there, the natives know it as nonda gegwants nyimbil, meaning in the native language 'left handed penis' because thats what they think it looks like, a theresa may, and they believe it must be picked with the left hand.
The unusual part, the really interesting bit is that its a powerfully psychotropic, hallucinogenic species, and the weird bit, is that its a member of the Boletus family. Boletus manicus (Heim et. al.)
And it must contain some incredibly potent compounds, and can't be something we are familiar with, such as DMT, 5-methoxy-DMT, baeocystin, psilocybin/psilocin. It was analyzed but with primitive technique, using paper chromatography and presumably something like Van Urk or Erlichs reagent; for three spots were detected, showing trace quantities of three unidentified indolic compounds. There are plenty of psychoactive indole derivatives, tryptamines like DMT and psilocybin known, as well as many synthetic tryptamines not found in the natural world. LSD and the naturally occurring lysergic acid hydroxyethylamide, and lysergic acid amide (ergine) found produced by a symbiotic fungus in the seeds of the morning glories, hawaiian baby woodrose and the aztec Badoh Negro/ololiuqui, produced not by the plant but the endophytic clavicipitalean fungus, which cannot be grown in culture as it requires the plant. The seeds are psychoactive, not wholly dissimilar to LSD.
Boletus manicus showed only very small amounts of whatever these three indolic compounds are, which rules out psilocybin immediately on potency grounds, and they must be nearly as potent as LSD, active fully at a couple of hundred micrograms and very powerfully at half a milligram.
So, its really got my attention piqued. I REALLY would love to discern the chemical structures of these three indoles. Because they are quite likely new to science, or else not known in nature.
And while I'm at it, I'd both collect spores to try and grow the mushrooms, as well as cuttings of the local nearby trees because members of the Boletus family are mycorrhizal, I.e growing in association with tree species, forming intimate super-fine networks of hyphae around and penetrating the tiny fiber-like rootlets at the end of roots, each supplying the other with nutrients they need, in a symbiosis.
So I'd grow the trees from cuttings and attempt to infect them with cultures from the spores germinated on agar plates or liquid culture, as well as taking samples of the mushroom, and of course, trying it out on myself. I really want to know what is in Nonda Gegwants Nyimbil, it would be a totally fascinating piece of field research and I'd love to be the one to make the discovery. Reportedly it causes, as well as visual hallucinations, auditory distortions. Thats unusual, and I know of one tryptamine well known for it. Namely N,N-diisopropyltryptamine, the typical effects of the psychedelic tryptamines are mediated through their properties as agonists of the 5HT2a type of serotonin receptors, although also many have quite pronounced effects as 5HT1a and 5HT2c receptor agonists (5HT stands for 5-hydroxytryptamine, the chemical name for the neurotransmitter serotonin)
Although its binding affinities for 5HT2a, 5HT1a and 5HT2c receptors is well known (low single digit micromolar in each case save for 5HT1a receptors to which diisopropyltryptamine binds with a Ki value of just over 500 nanomolar affinity), there must be something else going on to cause the unique auditory distortions induced by DIPT that aren't a feature of the other well known tryptamine psychedelics or ergolines.
And as a result it would be fascinating to figure out the structure of these three indolic compounds found in the hallucinogenic Boletus manicus (Boletus isn't a genus of fungi otherwise associated with mind altering compounds or species, this is quite exceptionally unusual) and, given the tiny amounts found in the mushroom and their remote location, synthesize them in the lab and do some displacement assays with radioactive probes for various serotonin receptors, the genes for which being cloned into cell lines, such as E.coli and thus find out, and comparing the actives to diisopropyltryptamine, just what the fuck is going on with this most unusual and exotic mushroom.
Whatever these indoles are
