You can now support our conservation work, nursery renovations, research & writing,
by making a donation or becoming a patron of our endeavors.
See https://ssbp.betterworld.org/
or click here for Tax-Deductible Donations via our new 501c3 fiscal-sponsor, Panax.
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Botanical Garden Associates
Sacred Succulents unique work has been recognized by numerous researchers, conservationists, and botanical gardens. To help safeguard our conservation efforts propagating rare species over the decades, we have donated or distributed hundreds of plants to botanical gardens and institutions—to name just a few: UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens (which houses the largest number of our Andean BK field accessions), the Huntington Botanical Gardens, the Seattle Spheres, the California Academy of Sciences, the New York Botanical Garden, the Parque de las Leyendas, the CSU Fullerton Greenhouses, the San Luis Obispo Botanical Gardens, the Ventura Botanical Gardens, and more.
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Peaceful Valley Farm Supply
An outstanding source for the organic gardener. Soils & amendments, fertilizers, natural pest control, greenhouse supplies and more.
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J.L. Hudson, Seedsman
An amazing and unparalleled public access seed-bank that was founded way back in 1911. One of the last great seed catalogs that contains thousands of offerings and plant descriptions — heirloom crops, common to rare medicinals and ornamentals, ‘natives’ to ‘exotics’ from all around the world… something new to discover on every page! They also offer a great selection of hard to find books. They are a great resource for seed germination information and offer gibberellic acid (GA3) kits used to enhance seed germination.
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Cactus & Succulent Journal
A wonderfully educative publication for both the amateur & expert, layman & scientist. Great photos. 6 issues a year. Subscribe!
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United Plant Savers
A vitally important non-profit involved in preserving medicinal plants & their habitats while assuring their abundant renewable supply for future generations!
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FARM Center
Fantastic organization dedicated to agroforestry education and application. Run by our dear friends Sophia Bowart and ethnobotanist Neil Logan in Kohala, Hawaii.
Neil has also helped develop a highly useful free online platform Agroforestry Design Tool™ (see www.AgroforestryX.com). With roots in the indigenous agricultural systems of Pacific Islands and tropical world, the Agroforestry Design Tool™ helps you to customize an agroforest for a particular site and goals in an easy-to-follow framework. This tool also has untapped potential for use in other biomes and for restoration design, contact Neil to discuss possibilities: farmcenter2015@gmail.com
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Microcosms
https://www.microcosmssacredplants.org
Steve White and Jill Pflugheber’s fascinating scientific art project featuring wondrous images of American sacred plants produced through confocal microscopy. Sacred Succulents has contributed a number of plants and photos to the project.
The project has published a gorgeous new book, order your copy today!
You can read my commentary on the project: https://www.microcosmssacredplants.org/commentary/ben-kamm/
I’ve also contributed an article on the Andean keystone tree Polylepis –https://www.microcosmssacredplants.org/plant/polylepis-spp/
Peruse the comments of colleagues like Neil Logan, Manolo Torres, Dennis McKenna, Luis Eduardo Luna, etc.: https://www.microcosmssacredplants.org/commentaries/
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Plants for a Future
A resource center for useful plants. Their database covers thousands of plants and contains lots of ethnobotanical information along with cultivation specifics. They promote vegan organic permaculture and the site contains lots of excellent information on ecologically sound horticulture & gardening.
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Delia Ackerman Films
https://www.deliaackerman.com/
“There is a beautiful resonance between your world and ours: in many Andean communities, llamas are believed to have a natural affinity with medicinal and high-altitude plants — herders say the llamas guide them to healing species, and that these animals protect and “read” the landscape in ways humans have forgotten. This relationship is part of the deeper story we are trying to bring to the world.”
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Jonathan Ott Books
A side project we’d been working on with our dear friend, famed writer and ethnopharmacologist Jonathan Ott, to publish a deluxe series of twelve volumes, including five new titles and five new editions of his long-out-of-print books. These hand-made limited editions were to be leather-bound, signed & numbered collector’s volumes with original art by renowned painter Donna Torres. While Jonathan got nearly all of the 12 planned volumes print ready, he died unexpectedly in July, 2025, intestate, and the future of this project is currently uncertain. We hope to get the green light from his estate to continue with the publications in the near future.
Sign up for the email list to remain updated – https://lists.sonic.net/mailman/listinfo/jonathanottbooks
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Botanical Dimensions
Top notch non-profit dedicated to ethnobotanical studies. Founded by our dear friend, ethnobotanist Kathleen Harrison and the late Terence McKenna.
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Living the Ceremony: Classes with Mateo Magee
https://www.livingtheceremony.com
Our dear friend, anthropologist and companion on many of our Andean expeditions, Mateo Magee, offers online courses, classes and educational retreats, to share some of what he’s learned during the expanse of his three decades of apprenticeship in the healing systems of Andean curanderismo.
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Strictly Medicinal Seeds
www.strictlymedicinalseeds.com
Formerly Horizon Herbs. One of our favorite mail order nurseries, run by the inimitable Richo Cech and his family. Your go-to source for a diversity of medicinal plants and seeds. They also offer an excellent home-scale tincture press and the finest seed cleaning screens available—we’ve used ours, handmade by Richo himself, to sift and sort a huge spectrum and countless number of seed over the past 20 years. Richo is also a wonderful writer and has produced the best books on plant cultivation and medicine making that I know of!
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Occidental Arts and Ecology Center
OAEC is a nonprofit education center, organic farm and nature preserve just down the road from us in Northern California. Founded by our friends, they offer seasonal courses on permaculture/ ecological agriculture, seed preservation, habitat restoration, sustainable community development, art, and much more. Internships available.
Part of the OAEC, is the WATER Institute (Watershed Advocacy, Training, Education, & Research):
Directed by our friends Brock Dolman and Kate Lunquist, working to promote understanding of the importance of healthy watersheds to healthy communities. Through demonstration, education, watershed community organizing, and advocacy leadership, the WATER Institute empowers community-based watershed literacy. https://oaec.org/our-work/water-institute/
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Swift Water Design
An organization founded by our good friend Kevin Swift, working to restore and revitalize watersheds and their surrounding ecosystems with innovative approaches that protect and engage the unparalleled bio-generative activities of the ever industrious beaver, while mitigating what their human neighbors often perceive as their “destructive” impact. If you have beavers near you, Kevin and his crew are the ones to call to understand how to best be in relation to these oversize rodents.
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Little, Big Project
Since 2020 I’ve been volunteering my help to a very special book project—an archival, anniversary, art book edition of our friend John Crowley’s beloved novel Little, Big illustrated by Peter Milton, see our webpage. Winner of the World Fantasy Award when it was first published in 1981, the novel is esteemed by a broad diversity of fans — from Yale literary critic Harold Bloom to ethnobotanist Kat Harrison, from musician Maynard James Keenan to acclaimed storyteller Ursula K. LeGuin and psychedelic philosopher Terence McKenna. For many readers Little, Big is more than a novel, it is an an enchantment, an alchemical engine of the imagination. Publishing this unique new edition has been a 20 year saga, stalled by sundry issues. Celebrated fantasist Neil Gaiman has become a major supporter of the project, along with my friend and counterculture historian Erik Davis [see Erik’s essay https://www.burningshore.com/p/big-little-big]. Their generosity has helped revivify the project and allowed printing to finally begin in 2022. The project’s architect and publisher, Ron Drummond, had a stroke June 2022 and since then book designer John D. Berry and myself have been tasked with overseeing the last stage of production and making sure all is in order to distribute books. Just updating the 18 years of customer records proved a considerable task; my volunteer work since summer 2022 has almost become a 2nd full time job. We are excited to report that the project is finally complete; the hardcover edition is now shipping, but selling fast, plus a limited quantity of the signed, Numbered edition—invest in a copy while you can!
Books can be ordered through: https://store.deepvellum.org/products/little-big
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TechGnosis: the work of Erik Davis
Our good friend Erik Davis is an writer, scholar & counterculture historian, journalist, and public speaker whose writings range from rock criticism to cultural analysis to esoteric explorations of California’s history. Check out his fascinating archive of excellent articles and podcasts, including these ones with our friends –
Our childhood friend and creative force behind D&D, Jeremey Crawford – https://techgnosis.com/dungeons-dragons-religion/
Writer John Crowley – https://techgnosis.com/alchemical-fantasy/
Ethnobotanist Kat Harrison – https://techgnosis.com/botanical-beings/
Biologist and tracker Meghan Walla-Murphy – https://techgnosis.com/tracking-the-wild/
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California School for Herbal Studies
Located in northern California and founded in 1978 by herbalist Rosemary Gladstar, CSHS is one of North America’s oldest centers for herbal education. They offer single day and weekend workshops as well as long term intensive courses.
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Society for Economic Botany
Established in 1959 to foster and encourage scientific research, education, and related activities on the past, present, and future uses of plants, and the relationship between plants and people. They publish an excellent quarterly journal, which comes with membership. Join today!
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Society for Ethnobiology
The Society of Ethnobiology is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of the relationships of plants and animals with human cultures worldwide. Membership includes their fascinating biannual journal.
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Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
An Open Access, peer-reviewed, online journal that aims to promote the exchange of original knowledge and research in any area of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine.
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Wade Davis
An informative website for our colleague Wade Davis—conservationist, ethnobotanist, anthropologist, explorer, and immensely talented writer.
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Indigenous Peyote Conservation Initiative
An organization in south Texas that is empowering Indigenous communities to reconnect with, regenerate, and conserve their sacred cactus medicines.
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Cactus Conservation Institute
Dedicated to protection and restoration of Astrophytum asterias and Lophophora in southern Texas.
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Donna Torres
Website for the renowned botanical illustrator and painter Donna Torres, wife of archaeologist Manolo Torres. Donna’s gorgeous paintings are an ecology of ethnobotanical images and visual narrative. Her incomparable work has graced the covers of many books, including Jonathan Ott’s work.
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Pesticide Action Network North America
PANNA is a non-profit organization working to protect human health and the environment by advancing sustainable alternatives to the worldwide pesticide epidemic. They have an excellent database on pesticide toxicity.
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Sustainable Community Development
A grassroots organization devoted to improving environmental awareness and stewardship. Supplier of EM™ (Effective Microorganisms) products and publications. EM™ is a fermented mixed culture of beneficial aerobic and anaerobic microorganisms. It is used worldwide to reduce/eliminate the use of chemicals and fertilizers in agriculture, for bioremediation, resource recycling and composting, water purification, human hygiene and more.
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Deep Vellum
Deep Vellum is a fantastic nonprofit publishing house and literary arts organization with the mission to bring the world into conversation through literature. Their fiscal sponsorship was key to the final publication of the anniversary edition of our friend John Crowley’s beloved novel Little, Big, and we expect to work with them on other future projects. Check our their amazing catalog of books – https://store.deepvellum.org/collections/all-inventory
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Bruce Pavitt
Our friend Bruce Pavitt is an author, music historian and cultural icon that founded Seattle’s Sub Pop, the record label that first discovered Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, etc.—the formerly underground, tribal music of our youth that inadvertently led to our interest in ethnobotany and plants…
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Ecofascism: Lessons From the German Experience
by Janet Biehl and Peter Staudenmaier. An extremely important text that should be read by everyone involved in various aspects of the environmental movement. When environmentalism becomes the voice of fear, it presents itself to be utilized by those who deal in fear for their own ends. Discusses the history of Germany’s back to the land movement in late 19th and early 20th century and ecological ideology espoused by notables like Ernst Haeckel that gave birth to the Nazi party. History has quickly forgotten that much of the reason for the Nazi’s early popularity and eventual rise to power was the appeal of their obsessions with organic agriculture, holistic medicine, “green” building and technology, nature mysticism, and ecological restoration. In fact, Nazi Germany implemented some of the most radical environmental protection laws of the 20th century! It is important that we remember that such ideals can and have been be twisted to repressive and dark ends and reconsider the almost totalitarian concepts of Nature in environmental rhetoric today. The whole text is now available online at – http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/germany/sp001630/ecofasc.html
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Here is some of our published research:
Echeveria cerrateana a new species from Ancash, Peru
The Crassulaceae of Cusco Peru part 1: subfamily Echeverioideae
The Crassulaceae of Cusco Peru part 2: subfamily Sedoideae
Exploring the Anthropogenic Vegetation at an Ancient Incan Site [→pg 5]
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See our Botanical Reflections page for a smattering of our writing—childhood botanical musings, our floral assessment of a remote Incan site, strange genealogy, lost friends, and pondering the fictions of taxonomy.
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