The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Tabernanthe iboga
Also called Bitter Grass, Eboka, Ibogo, Leaf Of God, Sacredwood
Iboga is an evergreen rainforest shrub from Central Africa, grown for ritual and traditional medicine, and it can grow into a small tree. Its root bark is strongly psychoactive, and it needs warm, moist, shaded conditions.
Tabernanthe iboga (iboga) is an evergreen rainforest shrub native to Central Africa. A member of the Apocynaceae family indigenous to Gabon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Republic of Congo, it is cultivated across Central Africa for use in traditional medicine and rituals.
T. iboga can grow up to 10 meters tall and contains psychoactive indole alkaloids, especially ibogaine, concentrated in its root bark, which produces strong neurological effects. It is used in both low doses as a stimulant and in high doses to induce intense dreamlike and hallucinatory states during rituals.
Indole alkaloids make up about 6% of the root chemical composition of iboga. Alkaloids that are present in more than 1% in root bark are: (in descending order)
Ibogaine
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Tabernanthe iboga by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
