This is the third installment of a four-part series on psychoactive plants in the mint family (botanical name Lamiaceae). This post’s focus is on the Leonotis genus, colorful shrubs native to tropical Africa and southern India.
LAMIACEAE is a family of plants with about 236 genera and more than 7,000 species. There is some confusion about how they are all related, so the above numbers are only tentative. The family is often referred to as the mint or sage family, and it includes most of the common, culinary herbs used in western kitchens, as well as a number of plants that can induce entheogenic or other psychoactive experiences. Probably the best known of the latter is Salvia divinorum, or Diviner’s Sage, which we discussed in a previous post.
In this installment, I would like to introduce Leonotis leonurus (shown above), native to southern and eastern Africa and Leonotis nepetifolia, which ranges across tropical Africa and southern India. Both are loosely-branched and short-lived shrubs that produce prolific, tubular red or orange flowers, arranged in circular or spherical clusters. L. leonurus is popularly known in South Africa either as Lion’s Tail or as wild dagga, while its sister, L. nepetifolia, is referred to as Lion’s Ear, or klip dagga.
The common names are revealing. In South Africa, the cannabis plant is known as dagga…
