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Yopo
|  Botanical name: Anadenanthera peregrina
Better known as: Yopo, Cebil, Coboba, Cohoba, Hataj, Vilca, Curupa, Nupa
Family name: Anadenanthera
Natural habitat: South America and the Caribbean
Nowadays only little knowledge is left about the Anadenanthera peregrina, but the seeds of this tree are age-long undiminished popular under the indigenous population of South-Americans and Mexicans. Today there are still innumerable Indian tribes in South America which use the Yoposeeds as an ‘entheogen’ during (religious) healings and rituals. Grinded to powder - or knead with a little water into a soft paste - and mixed with lime the Yoposeeds ensure visions that must provoke the communication with ancestors. Yopo possesses this ethnogeny function thanks to its powerful tryptamine hallucinogen NN-Dimethyl-tryptamine (DMT), Bufotenine and 5-MeO-DMT. Not only the seeds but also thumb and the bast of the Yopo-tree contain these substances.
The story goes that during his second visit to ‘the Americas’ (1493-1496) Columbus was the first (western) man to discover that the ‘kings’ of the Taino Indians used a mysterious powder that they sniffed – or, with the help of bamboo sticks or hollow bird bones, blowing it into each others nostrils – with the result that they lost their conscience and are no longer aware of what they do.
When Columbus orders the friar Ramón Pané to examine this strange behavior, he discovers that the shamans of the tribe call their powder cohoba. It takes up to four centuries before the powder is botanically identified by the ethnobotanist William E. Safford. During his research he, among other things, consults the notes of the German explorer Alexander Von Humboldt from 1801.
Just like Columbus four centuries ago Humboldt saw the Maypure Indians of Orinoco using the powder and he identified the source of the seeds (the tree) as Acacia niopo. But he made the mistake to attribute the strength of the powder to the ‘freshly calcined lime’ that was mixed with the fermented, powdered seeds. Safford’s conclusion was that different Indian tribes along the whole Orinocoriver (one of South Americas largest rivers and also the border between Venezuela and Colombia) are using Yopo as an entheogen for as long as one can remember.
The different groeps of Waiká Indians of Northern Brazil are known to be the most intense users of Yopo. | 
Yoposeeds germinate very easily (soak dried alternatives 24 hours in water first) in horticulture sand, perlite or vermiculite at a minimum temperature of 22°C. Put them in a pot approx. 1 cm under the soil. Put aside on a light spot (inside your house) but out of direct sunlight. Keep the soil well soaked and ventilate regularly for the first couple of weeks. Let them slowly get used to a dryer diet after germination. The soil must be entirely dry before you give water again. During the summer Yopo can grow as well outside (watch out for desiccation). But taking your plant back inside as soon as autumn falls is recommended. Differently than his cousin (and look-a-like) Anadenanthera Colubrina, Anadenanthera Peregrina is very frost-sensitive.
An adult A. peregrina can develop into a firm tree of approximately 18 to 20 meters high. The bark is rough and has wraths and a brownish/grayish color. On the firm branches there are a lot of mimosa-like (feather - or fernshaped) leaves with a beautiful, clearly green color. In the ‘armpits’ of these leaves grow long brown pods of approximately 35 cm long. These pods hide the flat, round and black Yopo-seeds (approximately 10 per pod). The spherical flowers of the Yopotree grow in little groups, are white to lightyellow and they are covered with tiny white hairs. Favorite habitat of the Yopotree in the wild: open forest and meadow areas.
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