ksh58

These are wild cucumber vines. We hunted them in the woods and later grew them in fields. Mom saved all the seeds and sold them to the Redwood City Seed Company.

What she thought she was doing was selling the seeds so that people could grow the vines for their beauty. When she found out that the seeds were a source of a form of a drug she refused to send them anymore. I don't know if the seed company knew this before but I suspect they did.

I found this next paragraph on a forum when I did a search.

WILD CUCUMBER
(Echinocystis lobata)
In the early l960s several children in Ojai, California, began conversing with
nonexistent persons and showing other symptoms of severe hallucination. It was
learned that they had been nibbling on the seeds of wild cucumbers. This low
crawling vine of the melon family can be found growing among thickets along
the coastal slopes of California, Washington and Oregon, as well as in many
other places throughout the U.S. It has greenish-white flowers and a spiny,
green, oblong fruit containing four large seeds. There is no information
available at the present time as to the exact chemical nature of the
hallucinogens in wild cucumber (possibly lysergic acid amides), but they are
most effective when the seed is not quite ripe, around middle or late spring.
One seed should be a good experimental starting dose. Birds eat the seed for
food without any harmful results, but since its chemistry is still unknown so
are its possible dangers. The trip lasts for eight to ten hours and no harmful
side effects have been noted.

What tipped her off was a report in the news of little kids chewing the seeds and seeing and talking to invisible people.

Index

Home