I don't know if this helps but Gloriosa Superba is the actual source of most modern colchicine - and there are several papers on Google about using Gloriosa Superba instead of commercial colchicine (try "Gloriosa Superba colchicine extract"). Seems it is extracted with ethanol. Another case where the extraction is easier from a different plant than the one that first had the chemical characterised from it. At uni we extracted caffeine from tea - apparently an easier source than coffee ! Reply / forward from John Crellin http://www.floralwiki.co.uk/ -----Original Message----- From: pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Pacific Rim Sent: 20 December 2005 02:29 To: Pacific Bulb Society Subject: [pbs] Fw: Fw: How to extract colchicine Laff track. Jim, I thank you for your response -- indeed I am about to write you offline asking to borrow an image -- but I did ask for online information about how to extract cochicine. In the 1960s I was not a subscriber to the North American Lily Society's journal, and as I type I am snowed in on a mountain far from any library, research or otherwise. Someone reading this knows how to extract colchicine in a simple way, but might not wish to respond online. Please reply offline if you prefer. Paige Woodward > Paige, you say he wants to extract colchicine. If that means > extracting pure colchicine, I'm not sure where to send you. > > But if what he wants to do is to induce tetraploidy using crude > preparations of crushed colchicum corms, that's different. Old issues > of the Yearbook of the North American Lily Society contain accounts of > doing this. I won't have the chance to do the search anytime soon, but > I'm pretty sure they're there. > If I were doing the search, I would start with the issues from the 1960s. > > Jim McKenney > _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php