Re: Datura or Brugmansia

The division of the genus Datura into Datura and Brugmannsia has certainly caused a lot of confusion; I have seen Brugmannsias offered as Datura and Daturas offered as Brugmannsia just about everywhere, including Thompson and Morgan.

Besides the flowers, another difference between Datura and Brugmannsia (I believe the official spelling is with two "n"s), another characteristic of Brugmannsia is that it ends to be upright and woody. Datura is herbaceous and most often has a low to medium shrubby habit, though I've seen some Datura stramonium (jimson weed) back in Iowa where I grew up, that was as nearly as tall as I was! The old stems can get tough and calloused but definitely not like wood. Also the fruit of Brugmannsia is long and smooth, whereas Datura fruits are round and spiny and split into four sections releasing the *many* seeds. (There is a smooth-fruited variety out there as well though.)

Perhaps a bit too much is made of their poisonous nature considering how many other plants are also quite poisonous. Still I remember "walking the beans" as a kid (for non-midwesterners, this means going through soybean fields pulling out volunteer corn plants that volunteered from the previous year) and being told to make sure and get the jimson weed too as just continued exposure to the smell of them on really hot humid days (pretty much all summer in Iowa) could make farmers sick. The smell is so unpleasant that I always wondered about the story of the Jamestown settlers that went delirious for days after cooking a mess of them up as "greens". Perhaps they were looking for a convenient means of penance?!

Bob Beer sazci@hotmail.com
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