usnic acid tea

[eub]

I was out camping in the Silver Creek hanging valley, and melting snow for water. (The creek had cut vertical snowbanks a good five feet high, so getting down to that would have been tricky.) The snow was old, and covered with downed needles and lichen, mostly Usnea, which grows like crazy there. Scraping off the dirty top layer found... licheny snow all the way down.

My water had strings floating in it. Was I carrying anything that could filter it? Paper towels too weak; backpack fabric too waterproof; but a packtowel (microfiber fleecy thing) worked beautifully.

The water had been boiled with the lichen in it. I remembered at the time that it would be steeping out usnic acid, but I couldn't remember how that was active -- antibiotic? Yes, apparently, but specifically a decoupler of oxidative phosphorylation (oh yum). So naturally it's been sold as a diet pill (which seems to be hepatotoxic). Shades of the 1930s dinitrophenol craze.

Comments

[eub.livejournal.com]

You know, I always have this tendency to think Usnea, which I should probably keep under control. Or look for the telltale central cord. Anyway, this stuff was quite likely Alectoria. But that's okay, it's loaded with usnic acid too.