Camote plant

#The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of camote plant. Field research by the applicant in the Sierras of northeastern Oaxaca has revealed that Mazatecs refer to large sclerotia of the sacred psychoactive derrumbe (landslide) fungus Psilocybe caerulescens Murrill in Spanish as camote (sweet potato) or camote del hongo (sweet potato of the mushroom) and in their own language as n'o tse. P. caerulescens does not produce sclerotia in cultivation under any conditions observed to date.

#The applicant's new camote plant is a variety of a recently described psychotropic Basidiomycete, Psilocybe tampanensis Guzman & Pollock. The wild fungus is a subtropical terricolous species [Guzman & Pollock, Mycotaxon 7 (2):373-376 (July-September, 1978)]. The type specimen, a solitary carpophore, was collected by the applicant during the Second International Mycological Congress at Tampa, Fla. during the summer of 1977. No other wild collections are known.

#FIG. 1 is a pictorial view of the new and distinct variety of camote plant.

#FIG. 2 is a pictorial view of a larger, older specimen of the new camote plant.

#The applicant discovered the new camote plant as a sector of a pure culture of Psilocybe tampanensis grown on ryegrass seed medium used as spawn for fructification studies of P. tampanensis in San Antonio, Bexar County, Tex. The applicant had previously developed ryegrass seed medium for Psilocybe and Panaeolus spawn production. Details of the preparation of ryegrass seed medium and various other novel media are described by the applicant in his book Magic Mushroom Cultivation (Herbal Medicine Research Foundation; San Antonio, Tex., 1977).

#The novel camote plant was cloned by tissue culture of medullary plectenchymal cells on 1.5% MEA (malt extract agar) and asexually propagated by mycelial transfers. On MEA cloned mycelia of the camote plant vary from white to yellow and brown [e.g. color 84. s. Y (strong yellow) and 57. l. Br (light brown) from ISCC-NBS Color-Name Charts Illustrated with Centroid Colors (Supplement to NBS Circular 553)] but sometimes turn blue from oxidation of an indole metabolite. On potato-dextrose agar or potato-dextrose-yeast agar the mycelia tend to be more strongly pigmented. Similar color characteristics have been observed for typical tampanensis strains of mycelia that do not produce sclerotia. Occasionally small sclerotia (usually less than 5 mm. or rarely up to 1 cm. in diameter) are produced on agar media by the cloned camote plant, distinguishing it from typical tampanensis strains of mycelia that do not produce sclerotia.

#Asexual reproduction of the novel camote plant has been accomplished many times by the applicant using ryegrass seed media in San Antonio, Bexar County, Tex. At temperatures in the range of 25.degree.-30.degree. centigrade in darkness or in an illuminated area camote primordia form on the walls of the glass container and in the media in about three weeks to a month after inoculation of ryegrass seed medium and mature in about three months after inoculation. They tend to grow larger if not harvested until six to eight months after inoculation.