A very large poisonous plant that looks like it belongs in a tropical rain forest. Datura rises 2 or 3 feet from the barren desert floor with gigantic leaves sometimes a foot long that are dark green and noxious smelling, accompanied by gorgeous light purple, broadly flaring, 5 petaled trumpet flowers that smell heavenly! The fruit is a brown sphere the size of a golf ball covered with threateningly sharp spines.
The toxic alkaloids in the entire plant can kill you, but you will go crazy first. So . . . this is one you never take internally.
Traditionally it was used as a poultice for arthritic pain or muscle soreness and smudged or smoked to alleviate bronchial spasms of asthma and make breathing easier, or to treat a runny nose.
Holy men and women used this plant in very strict ritualistic procedures along with other plants to achieve altered states. Some in the counterculture have tried it to get high – only to get sick and disoriented. It doesn’t work that way!
Note: The alternate name ‘Jimsonweed’ derives from ‘Jamestown weed’, the name given to a species of Datura boiled by soldiers during Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676 in Jamestown, Virginia. The men were said to be in a “frantic condition” for several days.
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