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Browse all 15 certificatesAbout kratom
Kratom is a tropical evergreen in the coffee family, native to Southeast Asia. This page covers what the plant is, where it grows, what's in the leaf, how it's harvested and processed, and how to tell quality leaf from filler, using botany and sourcing facts only.
Kratom is the leaf of Mitragyna speciosa, a tropical tree in the coffee family that grows along rivers and freshwater swamps in Southeast Asia.
Select a label on the plate to explore each part.
Kratom leaves are broad and oval with a pointed tip, typically 6 to 8 inches long when fully grown. Edges are often smooth or wavy, and some varieties grow horn-like points, which is where names like Horned come from. The leaves hold the plant’s highest concentration of naturally occurring alkaloids, with mitragynine the most abundant.
The midrib runs from the stem to the tip, and its color gives kratom its trade names: red, green, and white. Vein color shifts as a leaf develops, and drying methods vary by grower, but every color comes from the same species.
Twelve to seventeen pairs of side veins branch off the midrib in a feather-like pattern and curve toward the leaf’s edge. Together with the opposite leaf arrangement and pointed tip, this pattern is part of how botanists describe the species.
Leaves grow in opposite pairs along the branch, each on a short stalk, with two small leaf-like stipules at the base. When dried leaves are processed, some producers remove the coarser stem and vein material before grinding.
Kratom flowers form round, spiky heads, often in clusters of three. Each head holds 80 to 100 tiny flowers that turn bright yellow as they mature and give off a sweet scent.
Botanical education only. There are no FDA-approved uses for kratom, and nothing here is intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Kratom leaves naturally contain more than 40 alkaloids, and mitragynine is the most abundant. How much a leaf holds shifts with the season, the leaf’s age, and how it’s handled after harvest.
Source: University of Florida research, 2023 to 2025
Highest and lowest mitragynine levels, by weight, in leaf samples from one subdistrict of Surat Thani, Thailand, collected in June 2019, October 2019, and January 2020.
Source: Thai field survey, 2023
The direction each alkaloid moves as a leaf develops. This shows direction of change, not amounts.
Source: University of Florida research, 2023 to 2025
How much letting freshly picked leaves wither before drying raised mitragynine in two cultivars. Cooler drying temperatures generally preserved mitragynine, speciogynine, and paynantheine.
Source: University of Florida postharvest study, 2025
Red-, green-, and white-vein leaves collected in Kalimantan showed broadly similar alkaloid fingerprints, with mitragynine the most abundant in all three. Mature leaves in the study reached up to 1.19% mitragynine by weight.
Source: Kalimantan vein-color comparison
7-hydroxymitragynine, or 7-OH, occurs naturally in kratom leaf, but only in trace amounts. Concentrated 7-OH products are a different kind of product from whole leaf. Garuda Kratom sells whole-leaf powder and capsules only.
Percent by weight of dried leaf
At this scale, 7-OH barely registers next to mitragynine.
Sources: Thai field survey, 2023; published leaf measurements summarized by University of Florida researchers, 2025
Figures are published measurements from kratom leaf and leaf extracts, drawn from a Thai field survey (2023), University of Florida research (2023 to 2025), and a Kalimantan vein-color comparison. Levels vary from batch to batch. Educational content only. There are no FDA-approved uses for kratom, and nothing here is intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Where it grows
Long before it reached Western markets, kratom was part of the landscape and the rural economy across Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.
Borneo (Kalimantan) and Sumatra are the center of kratom growing today. Family farms harvest wild and planted trees along rivers like the Kapuas and dry the leaf in covered sheds, out of direct sun.
Kratom is a Thai word, and southern Thailand is where the tree first appears in the legal record. The Kratom Act of 1943 ordered existing trees cut down and pushed the export trade to Indonesia. Thailand took kratom off its narcotics list in 2021, and legal leaf is grown there again.
Called ketum or biak-biak locally, kratom grows across Peninsular Malaysia, especially in Kedah and Perak. It's regulated under the Poisons Act, which limits commercial trade, so Malaysian leaf rarely reaches international markets.
Vein colors
Vein color describes how mature the leaf was and how the farmer dried it. It doesn't mean a separate plant.
Harvested from young trees or early-growth leaves and dried indoors with little light, which keeps the lighter alkaloid profile of young leaf.
Picked mid-cycle and dried partly indoors and partly outdoors, for alkaloid ratios between white and red.
Harvested at full maturity, when the central vein turns deep red, and dried longer, often with a final sun cure that shifts the alkaloid balance.
Not a separate harvest. Green or white leaf is dried longer, often with controlled sun, until the powder turns yellow-gold.
Red leaf is briefly fermented before drying, for a distinct alkaloid ratio and a darker powder with a copper or gold tint.
Same tree, same species. What changes is when the leaf is picked and how the farmer chooses to dry it.
Red, green and white vein leaves, all from Mitragyna speciosa.
Compare every strainForms
It all starts as whole leaf. What happens next decides how it's milled, packed and shipped.
Dried leaf, deveined and milled to a fine powder. It's the industry standard because it keeps the whole-leaf alkaloid profile and stores well. Sold by weight, from a 28g sampler to kilo bags.
The same milled leaf packed into vegetable-cellulose capsules, each filled to the same weight. The shell is the only difference from loose powder.
A concentrated form made by soaking leaf in a food-grade solvent, filtering it and evaporating it down to a thick resin or spray-dried powder. Extracts are measured by total alkaloid percentage and are far more concentrated per gram than leaf, so they're handled and labeled differently.
Quality
If a vendor can't answer these six questions, the pouch is a guess.
Every batch should be tested by an independent ISO 17025-accredited lab for alkaloid content, heavy metals (lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury), microbes (Salmonella, E. coli, yeast and mold) and pesticides. Ask for the COA by batch number. If there isn't one, the test didn't happen.
A strain name is a trade name, not a map, so a vendor's story about where the leaf came from is hard to check. Ask for the part you can check: a lab report for the exact batch in your pouch, from an independent lab.
Kratom is a dried botanical, and its alkaloid content slowly drops over time, faster with light and heat. A fresh batch kept sealed and cool holds up better than a year-old pouch. Look for vendors who date their batches.
Fine, even powder points to proper drying and milling. Stem and vein content should be minimal, and color should be consistent within a vein type. Clumping, grit or off smells are warning signs.
Quality leaf ships in sealed, opaque, moisture-barrier pouches with a clear batch number that matches a COA. Clear bags, missing labels or unsealed packaging shorten shelf life.
The American Kratom Association's GMP Standards Program audits vendors against strict manufacturing requirements. It's voluntary, and only a small share of vendors qualify. It's one credential worth checking alongside independent ISO 17025 batch testing.
Key terms
The terms you'll see on certificates, strain pages and forums.
Go deeper
A full strain lineup, split-kilo pricing and a public COA archive for every batch. Free shipping on orders over $75.
Botanical education only. There are no FDA-approved uses for kratom, and nothing here is intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
SALE OF KRATOM TO PERSONS UNDER TWENTY-ONE YEARS OF AGE IS PROHIBITED BY LAW
Notice required by New York State law. Other states set their own minimum age.
