What is kanna? The plant, its history and its extracts

Kanna plants among the rocks of the Karoo at sunrise

Kanna's botanical name is Sceletium tortuosum. It is a low, creeping succulent with small fleshy leaves that grows in the Karoo, the dry country of South Africa's Western and Northern Cape.

Here is the short version: where it comes from, the name it used to go by, and what the words on our labels mean.

Where the name comes from

The genus name is the giveaway. Sceletium comes from the Latin for skeleton, because when the leaves dry out their fine veins stay behind, like a lace skeleton of the leaf. If you have ever looked closely at our raw herb, you will have seen it.

Long before botanists named it, the plant belonged to the Khoikhoi and San peoples of southern Africa, and it is part of their cultural history. The prepared plant was known as kougoed. Traditionally the leaves were crushed and left to ferment before they were kept, which is why you will see both fermented and unfermented kanna sold today. Our raw herb blend is unfermented.

Raw herb, ratio extracts and standardised extracts

Kanna reaches the shelf in three broad forms.

Raw herb is the dried, cut plant. Our Kanna Gold raw herb blend is two unfermented raw herbs together, and it carries roughly 1.5 to 2% alkaloids.

Ratio extracts, such as 200:1, tell you how much plant went into the extract by weight. They describe concentration, not a tested number.

Standardised extracts are the ones with names: Gold, Indigo, Evoke and Eclipse. Each batch is tested, and the label tells you two things.

The two numbers on a standardised label

The first number is how much. It is the total alkaloid content the test measured: 5% for Gold, 7% for Indigo, 8.5% for Evoke and 13% for Eclipse.

The second is which ones. Kanna's main alkaloids are mesembrine, mesembrenone and delta-7-mesembrenone, and each extract has its own mix. Gold is mostly mesembrine (80%, with 10% each of the other two). Indigo is a more even spread: 50% mesembrine and 25% each of the other two.

So two extracts can sit close together on the first number and still be quite different on the second. That is the whole reason they have different names rather than just different percentages.

What the research says

Kanna has been studied more than most ceremonial botanicals, though the studies are small. All three below tested Zembrin, one particular standardised kanna extract, so they tell you about that extract rather than about every form of kanna.

  • A quieter brain response to fearful faces. In a 2013 brain-scan study, 16 healthy adults took a single dose of the extract or a placebo. After the extract, the amygdala, the part of the brain that reacts to threat, responded less to pictures of fearful faces. Terburg et al., Neuropsychopharmacology, 2013.
  • Less anxiety ahead of a public speaking task. In a 2020 trial with 20 healthy volunteers, the people given the extract reported less anxiety before a simulated public speaking task than the people given a placebo. The authors call this tentative evidence. Reay et al., Human Psychopharmacology, 2020.
  • Better mental flexibility after three weeks. In a 2014 trial, 21 healthy middle-aged adults spent three weeks on the extract and three weeks on a placebo. On the extract they scored better on tests of cognitive flexibility and executive function. Chiu et al., Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2014.

These are small, early studies, and Nigel Gericke, who developed Zembrin, is an author on two of them. Treat them as a reason to be interested, and watch for larger trials.

Which one is which

Everything in the kanna range is sold for ceremonial, educational and collection purposes, and every product page carries the full details of its batch.

Traditional, historical and published research information only. Nothing here is medical advice, and none of these botanicals are intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any condition.

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