Scientific Name: Datura stramonium
Not-So-Fun Fact: Datura is highly poisonous. During an uprising in the late seventeenth century in the then-colony of Virginia, colonial rebels contaminated the authoritarian soldiers’ food with the hallucinatory plant to incapacitate them and render them clinically insane for more than a week. While the rebellion itself failed, this ploy succeeded, with horrifying results.
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Solanales
Family: Solanaceae
Genus: Datura
Species: D. stramonium
Description: Datura is a small, pretty plant with
a woody stem and broad, weedy leaves. The plant can grow to two to three feet in
height and is studded with flowers and seedpods described in fuller detail
under Reproduction & Development. All parts of datura, especially the seeds
are poisonous, and contain tropane alkaloids that if ingested cause fever,
hallucinations, seizures, madness, brain damage, coma, and death.
Environment: Datura is native to Central America,
but is found in most parts of the southern United States. The plant prefers a
warm temperate to tropical climate. British settlers in the Americas first
encountered datura when they attempted to eat the weeds found on Jamestown
Island, and later the horrific poison was used against the Loyalist authorities
in the rebellion of the late 1600s.
Reproduction & Development: Datura is a
flowering plant which produces long, trumpet-shaped blossoms in white or
violet. These later give way to small, egg-shaped green seedpods whose
protective casings give it the nickname “thorn apple”. The seedpods split open
to release the many highly toxic seeds. The unfortunate 1607 settlers found the
plant rather plentiful on Jamestown.
Nutrition: Datura relies on sunlight, water, and
soil nutrients to survive, as is usual among plants. It can thrive in most warm
conditions, from the dry southwest to the swampy Virginia eastern habitats so
beloved by mosquitoes.
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