Customer Reviews

Trout's Notes on San Pedro & Related Trichocereus Species

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This book was started as a chapter in Sacred Cacti and Some Sacred Succulants, Botany, Chemistry, Cultivation and Utilization. The chapter on San Pedro (Trichocereus species) was expanded into this large book of 310 pages which is technically Sacred Cacti 3rd Edition Part B.

This book pertains to San Pedro cacti (Trichocereus species in Latin taxonomy), which contain mescaline, the powerful hallucinogen also found in peyote. Conveniently, the full title of this book Trout's Notes on San Pedro and Related Species - A Guide to Their Visual Recognition With Notes on Their Botany, Chemistry and History gives a precise indication of it's content. The blurb on the back cover says, "More than you need to know" and this is certainly true unless the reader wants all of the very exhaustive info contained in this book that splits hairs about species, subspecies, strains, varieties, botanical identification, classification and naming of Trichocereus (San Pedro) cacti and so on. This reviewer would imagine that most readers, even those particularly interested in Trichocereus species would find almost all of this book to have much more information than is necessary.

Also, only the most technically apt readers will appreciate (or even begin to understand) the info provided on the chemical extraction and analysis of "tricho" cacti. However, more info is better than not enough and this book is certainly a great contribution to the body of ethnopharmacology as no one else seems to be providing even a fraction of the detailed info contained in this book and the authors are to be highly commended for all their research and the compiling and organizing of their info in this book.

One could say that Alexander Shulgin's TiHKAL is to tryptamines as Trout's Notes on San Pedro is to Trichocereus cacti species. Just as only chemists with interest in tryptamines could fully appreciate TiHKAL, only botanists with a special interest in mescaline-containing cacti can fully appreciate Trout's Notes.

All that having been said, there is more in this book than what is mentioned above. The entire book is packed with black and white photos of various tricho cacti. Many of these photos show specimens that are far larger or more varied than what most of us are accustomed to seeing on the internet.

Hidden in the thickets of highly technical material are pockets of other important information for less technically oriented readers. These are so few that they can easily be listed here.

Page 25 offers some notes on the legality of these cacti, turning to an examination on the myths of the supposed dangers of mescaline on into page 26.

Page 26 into page 27 gives basic notes on dosage and selection of strains based on dosage required and the effects gained.

Page 81 gives basic info on dosage specifically for Trichocereus pachanoi.

Pages 106 to 119 gives a very detailed history of San Pedro with citations of the literary works involved. To this reviewer this is the real gem of the book. Neither Jonathon Ott's Pharmacotheon nor Christian Ratsch's Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants offer nearly as much detail on the history of San Pedro. This reviewer knows of no other source for this that comes close.

Page 111 offers a long list of psychoactive plants traditionally used with San Pedro cacti.

Pages 120 to 123 give suggestions for further reading on San Pedro grouped by subcategories.

For interested readers, throughout this book one can find material on extraction and bioassaying of various species of Trichocereus cacti. Perhaps this would be a better book if the authors stooped a bit to the level of readers who do not have degrees in chemistry and botany. Then again, perhaps this is not possible. I cannot claim to know as most of this book is over my head. Only the detailed historical data is fully absorbed by myself.

Disappointingly this book contains no info on the cultivation of these cacti. Although the book's title and subtitle gives no indcation that it would, it is difficult to imagine why the authors would not provide such info when they seem to know everything there is to know about these cacti.

Be that as it may, information that is provided - which apparently can only be found in Trout's books - is important to preserve for the entheogenic community. It is for this reason alone that this reviewer chose to buy this book which, it can be expected, will be out of print and hard to find sooner or later and sought after in the way that Pharmacotheon and other books are, although by a smaller and more specialized group of readers.

San Pedro & Related Trichocereus Species is a masterpiece of botanical and scientific work. The book is oversized (it is huge and fat) and packed with photographs and descriptions of Trichocereus cacti. There are over a thousand photographs. The vast amount of information is in small text and is immense. Detailed descriptions abound like an encyclopedia. The alkaloid makeup of an infinite number of cacti is discussed in detail. The book drips with botany, chemistry and history of the species like no other. I honestly don't know how that Mydriatic Productions can make any profit publishing and selling this book at such a low cost. Trout and friends did a magnificent job putting this authoritative collection of information, references and photos together. If you collect cacti or want a book that is only going to increase in value, I would strongly suggest you purchase this edition, now. Like all of Trout's Notes books, every college library should have a copy of each title in their library. It is a collectable unsurpassed by any other book of its kind.