36· S£PTEMBER I 88 HOMEGROWN PEYOTE Story and photographs by Robert Miller

My first contact with peyote was in their day. Peyote may be spineless, 1972. I packed my camping gear but every other plant in Texas is and a copy of The Teachings oj Don covered with them. My first day of Juan into my battered VW van, and searching turned up a diamondback headed to Texas in search of an rattlesnake, lizards, spiders, and a organic path to an alternate reality. heat rash, but no peyote. I didn't 0Ne talked like that in 1972.) Texas give up. On the second day I was alien territory for pony tailed discovered a clump of three plants Californians driving VW vans in the growing in the shade of a small early '70s, but I arrived in Rio shrub. The following day I found Peyote seeds are tiny. Life in the Grande City, Texas, without any half a dozen more plants for a total Chihuahuan Desert has inbred serious hassles. My real problems of nine in three days of hard the ability for peyote seeds to lay began the day after my arrival, when searching. dormantfor years and still I started searching for peyote. I Even fifteen years ago peyote was remain vital. quickly learned that peyote isn't like difficult to find in the wild. Its the rainy season, and during the dry the cactus you see on a cover of growth is restricted to the season shrivels up and almost Arizona Highways Magazine. It's a fat, southernmost limits of Texas along disappears beneath the sand. The little, ball-shaped cactus that hides the Rio Grande Valley, and extends first plants I found were given away under the shade of spiny shrubs and for a considerable distance into by their bright pink fruit, otherwise I thorny bushes, the same places Mexico. The plump blue-green body would never have seen them. snakes and tarantulas like to spend sits barely above the ground during The evening before I left Texas I

A cresting form ofpeyote. Cresting occurs when the plant's growth tip loses control of the growth regulation process and begins spreading laterally instead of upward. This very old and beautiful plant has produced a normal offset at the very base of its catapillar like tip. Cresting isfairly common among cactus and doesn't seem to harm the plant. HIGH nMES • 37

A collection of mature peyote clusters. decided to sacrifice a couple of my on some future occasion, but I never across Southern Texas, but, over the hard won trophies. I sliced the did. Maybe it was because I'd gone past decade, collectors, dopers, plants into wedge-shaped pieces and through so much to get them, maybe Indians, and narcs have nearly carefully removed the little tufts of it was because they were somehow a exterminated the plant on both sides wool which I had heard would make special link to those ancient Indians, of the border. Even the Indians of you sick. Eating peyote is not love at or maybe it was because I'd puked Mexico, whose culture is first bite, especially fresh, slimy my guts out the first time I'd eaten inextricably tied to the peyote peyote. The chokingly bitter taste is them. Whatever the reason, I stuck ceremony, have had to start buying nauseating. I quickly learned my them in a couple of clay pots and their plants because peyote can no apple-sized wedges were too large to forgot about them. Miraculously, longer be found at traditional eat without chewing, so I diced them they survived the neglect, and gathering sites. into small chunks and swallowed bloomed faithfully every year. I decided to begin a serious effort them whole with some juice. After In 1980 I renewed my interest in to raise peyote from seeds off my about twenty minutes, with the help plants after meeting a woman who original Texas plants. My success in of a couple of joints, I was beginning was into cactus. Unfortunately the growing this endangered cactus to come on. After about an hour I interest outlived the romance, but might prove the key to its survival lost the battle with my stomach and my peyote found themselves the during this period of antidrug was convulsed with nausea. What I'd main attractions of a large repression. worked so hard to get down, came greenhouse I'd built in the backyard. I was lucky. I had mature, seed up quickly. When my stomach I was anxious to add more cactus to producing plants to work with. The began to stabilize, I was able to close my budding collection, so I headed most difficult part of growing peyote my eyes, enjoy the beautiful warm back to Texas, through Arizona and turns out to be getting vital seed. Texas evening and experience a New Mexico. I collected enough Packets of seed can be purchased sense of closeness to an ancient cactus to nearly fill my greenhouse, from cactus specialists in Europe. Indian culture that I could never but during a week in Texas I The British seed firm Thompson and really begin to know. couldn't find a single peyote. Morgan offers ten seeds of The next morning I packed my Disappointed, I returned to Lophophora williamsii (peyote's , remaining plants into a sack and California and began to do some formal namelfor $3.95 in its 1987 headed back to California. I guess I research on the endangered plants. catalog. If you have access to a plant, figured I'd eat the rest of my plants Peyote used to be relatively common seed collecting is easy. Peyote 38 • SEPTEMBER / 88

Apeyote which has produced two offsets. An old clump in the wild might have 20 heads or more. Offsets can be detached with a sharp knife and potted up.

produces mature fruit nine months toothpick, once the seeds have To improve the growth rate you to a year after flowering. The germinated. need to understand how cylindrical fruits are 11l6th of an I've had over a 90% success rate Lophophora grows in the wild. inch long and contain about six using this simple germinating tray, a Peyote is an extremely succulent seeds. The fruit dries and shrivels remarkably high rate for such an . cactus. It thrives in areas of hot, up, leaving the seeds inside the exotic and rare cactus. rainy summers and cool, dry wooly topknot. They can be plucked Once your seeds are on the damp winters. It does not like direct sun, out using a pair of tweezers. vermiculite, cover the tray with its preferring the broken shade under The seeds germinate readily, but protective cap and leave it in a the shelter of a shrub. It won't thrive unless you know what you're doing, warm, bright spot, out of any direct in an acid or neutral based soil. It is they won't survive two weeks. To sunlight. Maintain a temperature of often found growing in nearly pure propogate, get a small clear plastic between 70 and 90 degrees F. limestone soil. Peyote does not like tray with a top. The trays that Within two weeks you will see the cold weather; however, my plants strawberries are sold in are ideal seeds beginning to germinate. Be have survived 30 degrees F with because they are transparent and careful when you take the lid off to overhead protection and dry potting have holes for air circulation and check your plants. Even the slightest soil. Cactus can survive colder drainage. Fill the trays with an inch jarring can bury them. temperatures as long as they are kept of damp vermiculite. This material is Peyote, like many forms of rare very dry. My plants have also good because it stays damp and cactus, is painfully slow-growing. A endured temperatures of 120 removes the hazard of having to mature, baseball sized plant can be degrees F in my cactus house, water the extremely fragile thirty years old. You can double or benefitting from frequent watering seedlings. triple the expected growth rate of and shade cloth. Ideally you'll Sprinkle the tiny black seeds wild plants through careful provide your plants with a evenly across the surface of the cultivation. Remember though, a temperature range of 45 degrees to vermiculite. Don't try to cover them. tripled growth rate is still a slow 100 degrees F. Try to match the If your seeds get buried they won't growth rate. Growing peyote weather patterns of peyote's native be able to push themselves to the requires patience. If you want fast Chihuahuan Desert. Hot and damp , surface. You can easily push the growth and a quickly available high in the summer and cool and dry in roots into the vermiculite with a you better stick to raising pot. the winter. One British cactus HIGH TIMES· 39

Aflowering crested peyote. Crests occur when a plant's growth tip begins to spread laterally instead of upward. It is a growth abnormality fairly common in some species of cactus.

collector would only water her soil. Increase or decrease the ratio of careful. Water from below by placing plants after her Mexican friend sand to potting soil, depending on the tray in a shallow pan of water would call her and tell her it was how humid your climate is. Don't and letting the water rise to the raining in the desert. use dirt. It isn't sterile and can cause surface. Three months after germination disease and fungal infection which By the fourth year, the peyote can your plants will start to develop can kill your plants. be potted into two-inch individual wooly topknots and begin to Peyote has a long turnip-like tap containers, using the same sandy soil resemble mature peyote. After a year root, so be very careful when lifting mix. When repotting, attempt to lift they will be the size of a raisin. You your seedlings out of the the plants without disturbing the will be able to see a pattern of small vermiculite. Punch a small hole in soil around the tap root. By the fifth irregular "ribs" appear along the the sandy mix using a large nail, year, your walnut-sized peyote will sides of the plant. These ribs are an then gently lower the small plants begin to flower and set seed. extremely interesting feature of into the hole. If particles of This process may seem painfully many succulent species. They allow vermiculite are attached to the slow, but it is fully twice to three the plant to expand and contract rootlets, leave them on. If you try to times the growth rate of seedlings in with the availability of water. As brush them off you will damage the the wild. After all this effort, I doubt your plants get older pay attention to roots. Firm the sand around the tap you'll want to eat your plants. these ribs when watering. If the ribs root, using care not to set the neck of Besides, a five year old plant can are fully expanded don't water the plant deeper than it was growing bring as much as $100 from a cactus _ unless you want to split the plant in the vermiculite. Space the plants collector. open like an over ripe melon. evenly about a half-inch apart. I am convinced that if this Year-old seedlings are ready to They'll remain this way for the next mythical and potentially valuable move out of the germination tray. two years. (I warned you: peyote medical plant is to survive, it will be This task is best done in late spring, cultivation is an act of patience.) with the help of conservationists. I'm when new growth is obvious. Use a Once you've potted your plants planning on returning to Texas and larger version of the germination into the larger tray, dust a slow planting some seedlings near the tray if possible. Mix coarse builders' release fungicide over the surface. place where I found their parents 25 .sand with a pinch of garden lime The high humidity of the tray can years ago .• and a small amount of good potting cause fungus dampoff, if you aren't