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✦ Wild Dagga · in one breath ✦
Feline yet soft as a resting lioness — the sensual opening, the companion of the sangoma.
⊹ The path of the plant
⊹ Community voices
What the community murmurs.
Average · 182 reviews
Breakdown
I bought wild dagga for the first time. Currently smoking my second one. The orange colour is ridiculous! Very surprised it did anything at all! At first there was a kind of lightheadedness not too different from tobacco but more dreamy and long lasting and a mild but noticable euphoria. It is a mood lifter for sure. Beautiful product. Already recommended it to some friends. And the vendor threw in a gift! Thank you so much
Michael
Ritual · 13 November 2025
Such a light beautiful tea, very easy on the palate too. Before I drank it; I was slightly tense, one of those mornings, after drinking, I felt very light (in the best way) and I was able to relax for several hours, all tension gone. I now mix the dagga petals with my morning hibiscus and, wow, 2 very feminine teas who are great for the soul, together or apart. Thank you again dream herbs
Dorit Phipps
Ritual · 24 January 2023
Very smooth and potent as an herbal joint. The herbs arrived very fresh. Thank you.
Jareth
Ritual · 28 November 2025
Ask the Forest about Wild Dagga
276 books digested, 90,000 indexed passages. She answers on lineages, synergies, cautions, ritual variations.
The community space of Wild Dagga.
Voices, circles, practitioners, offerings — gathered around this plant.
Enter the Temple →⊹ FREQUENT QUESTIONS ⊹
We answer.
Is Wild Dagga cannabis?
No. Wild Dagga (Leonotis leonurus) belongs to the family of mints (Lamiaceae), cannabis to that of Cannabaceae — no botanical kinship. She contains no THC, no CBD, no cannabinoid. She simply carries the name dagga that cannabis borrowed from her in South Africa.
What are the effects of Wild Dagga?
Tradition lends her soothing, soft and lightly euphoric sensations, with a sensual note. The felt effect is calm and light — an opening of the breath rather than an altered state. It can superficially evoke a very soft hemp, but the mechanism is entirely different.
How do I prepare Wild Dagga as a tea?
Pour 1 to 2 tsp of dried petals into 250 ml of simmering water, never boiling (around 80°C). Let infuse 7 to 10 minutes, strain, drink warm. The taste is earthy with a mint note, and the petals can serve for a second infusion.
Can Wild Dagga be smoked?
Yes, this is the traditional use of the peoples of southern Africa and she enters nicely into a smoking blend, finely crushed. Any smoke remains irritating for the respiratory tract — the infusion is the soft way to favour for regular use.
Is Wild Dagga legal in France?
Yes. Contrary to cannabis, Wild Dagga is sold freely in France as a dried flower and botanical specimen. She contains no controlled substance.
Why is she called dagga?
Dagga is the Afrikaans transcription of the Khoikhoi word dachab, which first designated Leonotis leonurus — the plant the first peoples smoked before the arrival of cannabis. The name then slid toward cannabis. Today we say wild dagga to give the original plant her name back.
What are the contraindications of Wild Dagga?
To be avoided during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and in case of Lamiaceae allergy. Caution if you take hypotensive or sedative medications, in case of hypotension or unstable diabetes, and before surgery. Do your own research (DYOR).
Does Wild Dagga help to sleep and dream?
Tradition uses her as evening companion to soften the entry into the night, and she is reputed to colour dreams without tearing from the real. A light tea 30 minutes before bedtime, over a few nights, is the soft way to explore her.
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In depthbotany · phytochemistry · history
### A mint, not a hemp
Leonotis leonurus is a shrub that can exceed two to three metres, with opposite hairy leaves and orange-coral bilabiate tubular flowers raised in tiered crowns (Dale Pendell, Pharmako/Poeia, p. 220-221). She belongs to the family of Lamiaceae — the mints, like sage, lavender and horehound. Cannabis is a Cannabaceae, cousin of the hop. The two plants have no botanical kinship: only the name has confused them for a time.
The flower is the fruit of a co-evolution with the African sunbirds, nectarivores with a long curved beak that fits exactly into the floral tube. The plant sculpted her calyx around the bird's beak, and the bird her beak around the calyx. The plant grows easily from seeds and is today mainly cultivated as ornamental beyond her area of origin (Pendell, p. 221). A sister species, Leonotis nepetifolia ("Klip Dagga"), has naturalised in the tropics of the whole world; in the West Indies she is called Christmas candlestick for her crowns of flowers that look like lit candles.
### The stolen name
The history of the word dagga is one of the most beautiful linguistic gems in the plant world. In the click Khoe languages, dachab designated a precise plant: Leonotis leonurus, the shrub the shepherds smoked in the evening. The Dutch settlers transcribe the word as dagga without changing the plant. Then cannabis arrives; it too is smoked, stronger, faster — and the word slides toward the newcomer. In the 20th century, dagga means cannabis in Afrikaans and Zulu usage, and Leonotis leonurus must be called wild dagga to distinguish herself from the thief of her name.
The linguist K. David Harrison (When Languages Die, 2007) cites this dispossession as a case study: an indigenous language names a plant, a colonial language borrows the name and displaces it, and three centuries later the original plant carries a foreign name to recognise herself. This is also why INFUSE refuses the shortcuts "CBD equivalent", "weed substitute", "like cannabis but legal": these formulas lock the plant in the cousin that took her name.
### Phytochemistry — why this is not cannabis
Pharmacology is the clearest proof. No cannabinoid has been isolated in the plant, no documented binding to CB1 or CB2 receptors. The major active compounds belong to an entirely different class: the labdane diterpenes.
- Marrubiin — labdane diterpene shared with the European white horehound; profile described as bronchodilator, expectorant and mild hypotensive, which illuminates the traditional respiratory use.
- Leoleorins A to J — series of at least ten labdane diterpenes isolated in recent decades. Leoleorin C shows a moderate affinity for the Sigma-1 receptor (Ki ≈ 2.9 µM), receptor of the central nervous system — and not a cannabinoid receptor.
- Leonurine — alkaloid related to that of the motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca), with mild cardiac and uterotonic tropism (hence the contraindication in pregnancy).
- Tannins, saponins, phenolic acids, flavonoids — accompanying cortège.
If the felt effect sometimes superficially evokes a very soft hemp, it is a phenomenological convergence without pharmacological convergence: two chemically different plants can produce comparable sensations through distinct molecular paths. The subjectivity of the effect says nothing of the mechanism. As Dale Pendell writes, despite the name "wild dagga", Leonotis leonurus is neither cannabis nor related (Pharmako/Poeia, p. 220).
### What the studies report
Modern research remains preliminary and largely preclinical. Studies report antinociceptive, anti-inflammatory, hypotensive, anticonvulsant, antioxidant activities, as well as a hypoglycaemic effect in the rat and a moderate inhibition of acetylcholinesterase. The most discussed contemporary lead concerns the bronchodilator profile of marrubiin and the Sigma-1 tropism of leoleorins — two directions very far from the cannabinoid paradigm. None of this constitutes proof of efficacy in humans: these are leads, not guaranteed effects. Dale Pendell, who has tried to test the effects of the smoke, reports "mixed and most often unspectacular" results, one person however finding the smoke "very relaxing and clarifying" (Pharmako/Poeia, p. 221).
### Living lineage — Khoisan, Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho
Leonotis leonurus grows throughout southern Africa, from the Cape province to KwaZulu-Natal. The pastoral Khoikhoi and the hunter-gatherer San, whose presence on these lands goes back tens of thousands of years, smoked the dachab alone or in blends — companion of the evening more than recreational drug. The Bantu peoples of southern Africa then integrated her into their popular medicine: decoctions of leaves and flowers for cough, cold and bronchitis, topical applications on bites and stings, ceremonial incense of the sangomas (Watt & Breyer-Brandwijk, The Medicinal and Poisonous Plants of Southern Africa, 1962; J.F. Sobiecki, A review of plants used in divination in southern Africa, 2008). In the traditional blends, one finds her alongside buchu, wild rosemary and kanna (Sceletium tortuosum), the other great Khoisan plant.
### Safety
To be avoided during pregnancy and breastfeeding (uterotonic tropism of leonurine, insufficient safety data). Caution in case of hypotension, unstable diabetes, and with hypotensive, hypoglycaemic or sedative medications, whose effect she can potentiate. Possible allergy to Lamiaceae. Any smoke, whatever the plant, irritates the respiratory tract: for regular use, the infusion is the soft path. Leonotis leonurus is not a threatened species (SANBI red list: least concern), but respect for the communities and territories of origin remains a vigilance. This page is informative and does not replace the advice of a health practitioner. Do your own research (DYOR).
« Every plant is a door. Wild Dagga opens onto a long companionship — listen to it more than you measure it. »