Kanna powder: Sceletium tortuosum in ground form
Kanna is the name Sceletium tortuosum trades under. It is a low succulent growing in the arid parts of South Africa, in the genus Mesembryanthemum, the ice plant family. The botanical name comes from the Latin sceletus, skeleton, because the veins on dried leaves stand out so sharply that little more than a frame is left. In Afrikaans the plant is called kougoed, literally chewing stuff, and older sources also use the name channa.
This tube holds 1 gram of finely ground plant material from Global Herbs. That sets it apart from the extracts in the same range: nothing here has been concentrated or drawn out, it is simply the dried leaf and stem milled to a powder. If you want kanna in its original form rather than as a concentrated fraction, this is where you start. The alkaloids that interest researchers in this plant are mesembrine, mesembrenone, mesembrenol and tortuosamine; they occur naturally in the material and have not been raised in this powder.
How kanna was traditionally prepared
The San and the Khoikhoi were using the plant long before anything about it was written down. The material was bruised, left in the sun for several days to ferment and then dried. The written record starts in the seventeenth century: the earliest mentions date from 1662 and 1685, the latter in the journal of Simon van der Stel, governor of the Cape for the Dutch East India Company. Nearly a century on, the Swedish botanist Carl Peter Thunberg described root, stem and leaf being pounded together, twisted up and set aside to ferment. The traditionally prepared material was chewed; in the trade you will also come across kanna as tea, tincture and snuff powder.
Storage and responsible handling
Powder draws in moisture, so keep the tube shut and store it somewhere dry and out of the light, where children cannot reach it. If you take medication, in particular antidepressants of the SSRI or MAOI type, speak to your doctor or pharmacist before bringing kanna into the house. Leave it alone during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and it has no place behind the wheel. Responsibility for what you do with it rests with you. Looking for kanna in another form? Avalon Magic Plants also carries whole and shredded Kanna Leaves and Rapé Kanna, and, for anyone who does want a concentrate, the Global Herbs extracts Full Spectrum, Happy Calming, Krystal Ultimate and Premium Extreme Strong. Your order ships in discreet packaging.
