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Whos Growing Daturas?

Here's my Datura inoxa (moonflower) my only one blooming currently

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This flower went from bud to fully open since yesterday morning until 8 or 9 PM when it opened fully. This morning you can see the bloom is sill there but once the sun hits it at noon the flower will be shot but there's already one getting ready to open again tonight the tall twisty yellow bud you see. This Datura has a slight fragrance but not nearly as strong as my Lilium regale. I don't recall which Daturas I've had in the past which had a very overpowering fragrance. My other species are not blooming yet, my yellow double D. metel is getting ready to bloom a new flush, it smells like lemon pudding! I killed some bugs on that one with insecticidal soap which looked like a fuzzy white bug with big furry rabits ears any idea what those were?

Are you growing Daturas or Brugmansias? Lets see some shots!
My Brugmansia is taller than me but still not blooming even with 4-5 hours of direct sun per day any idea why?
 
Used to, would like to again. The seed pods are awesome, and I love the way the cigars unroll...and the scent....ahhhhh! Watch out for the sap, wash your hands after touching the leaves....you don't want to injest the slightest amount of this plant...it is highly psychoactive but the experience is a hellish nightmare, and potentially deadly. Nonetheless, it is an awesome plant, and better yet, it grows like a weed, because it IS a weed!
 
I have all the wild species of Datura coming up but the oak leaf variety (D. quercifolia) it seems like the seedlings are always very weak and die before making very many leaves.

I'm always fondling my Daturas, probably why I'm so plant crazy this summer! I've never felt any effects from burning dried Datura leafs or flowers on charcoal disks as insence but nothing compares to the scent of the freshly open blooms on a hot summer night! Thankfully my cat has no interest in them, only grassy leaved plants get his attention. He ate all of my Irises this spring...!
 
I have seeds of a datura I collected last fall...haven't sown them yet. I love them but they get so big I haven't dared to add one to my yard yet.
 
I had a double purple and triple yellow I grew. They seem to reseed themselves, but that corner of the garden is getting pretty full and I haven't looked too closely to see if they will come back this year. I prefer the Brugmansias. Larger plant, larger flowers, more blossoms and heavier scent.
 
tamlin's right. they have high amounts of atropine and scopalomine (sp)
 
According Ulrike & Has-George Preissels book on Angels Trumpets and Thorn Apples the compounds are more and less active at certain times of the year, certain light levels, temperatures, etc. But yeah, good idea not to let the kids of pets chew on them.

As I say, after handing some hundred seedlings and larger plants this year (raised for a local nursery who deals uncommon plants) I haven't had any terrify phantasms or animal hosts leading me into the hills.

I had a friend while I worked at the Rennaisance Faire who was very into Carlos Castadena and always wanted to experiment with 'Jimson weed' (D. stramontinum) after reading his books gloriying the experiences. He was never able to acquire any in his short lifetime (likely a good thing) but no other write ups I've read have lead to the idea that Datura was a good plant for illicit purposes. Daturas chemicals are used in a compound for anti-spasmatic medications. But for the most part I think that media scare has led to certain plants having a black mark. Often they try and stigmatize all garden salvias because of S. divinatorum from S. America, which is not at all a common garden salvia that people often grow. Yet every summer our local news and newspapers have articles like "Are your kids getting high in the garden: Salvia, Morning Glory and Datura".

How many of those people know that the Tomato plant (leaves & stems) actually have the same chemicals and are just as toxic as a Datura or Belladona if eaten? There are numerous poisonous and psychoactive common houseplants if one cares to do the research. I just think it's often blown out of porportion and keeps people from enjoying these plants.
 
tomatoes, potatoes and peppers are all related to deadly nightshade. foxgloves(and lillies of the valley?) can cause heart failure. lupines contain alkaloids and thier relitives are called "locoweeds" for good reason.....................there are more, but im in a hurry and those i remember off the top of my head
 
  • #10
Thanks for that website link, very good info there.

Well as to the ingestion issue, it's true I have had no personal experience, but I sure have read of other's personal experiences. It seems the result of ingestion inspired the participants in the experience to be VERY eloquent. I liked the one who said he hallucinated that burning worms were burrowing through his flesh, and the account he gave of the purging process. With all bue respect to Carlos Castenada, his accounts of Don Juan's pipe mixture and mentioning that it contained Datura seeds as one of them romanticized the drug for millions uninformed of the other effects of other drugs also found in the seed. So this plant got a "bad rep" it's true, but probably deserved. It's been around a long time, and has always been controlled by the Wise, it's avalability limited and access to it granted only after education. Education is the important focus when regarding the "medicine" aspect of this very beautiful plant. They are becoming more available and popular too despite their potential "bad" effects.

But back to the beauty...I love the way the leaves get that strange blue frosty look, and now that you mention it, it seems more noticable different times of the season, sometimes mcore sticky than others.

Burning it as insence...does it have a good smell?
 
  • #11
Yes, I'm not promoting daturas as a medicament or smoking mixture just the horticultural aspects. I myself never read Castenada and I have no idea what he actually writes about but my late pal Kaleb was very enamored with the books and it made him want to study shamanism.

There's a recipe in the Priessel book for reducing vericose veins with a salve made of Datura or Brugmansia but that's one of the ways the old tyme witches used to use it (as a salve) or so I recall reading.While I have ugly legs from standing on concrete 12 hours a day for the last two decades I don't think I'll be whipping up a batch!

As far as insence use Datura just smells like a burning dried up fall leaf, not great, much better sniffing the flowers at night (or bring the pot in the house at night for a great scent while you sleep). Even of the true insence resins there are many that are not great or just downright reek such as camphor, frankinscence and myrr. each one burnt alone you COULD raise the dead with that stench My faveorite stuff is: Dragonsblood resin and the Ambergris mixture.

Years back my cousin was selling insence & herbs at the Rennaisance Faire and their booth had got in a bunch of true Mandrake root I had to get some. Another dud as far as insence goes. I recall you (Tam) were looking for the live plant last year or so but all I've been able to find in the US is the Podophyllum "May Apple" not the true old world mandrake. On Ebay there's a seller who has a four pack of Hemlock, Mandrake (real one), Datura and Belladona seeds but he's in the UK. I try not to buy seed from outside the US since technically we're not supposed to get it without mountains of hassle and paperwork but I have received it every time I've ordered seed from foreign sellers by accident.
 
  • #12
Youre welcome, I just dont understand why any one would want to talk to their book bag or fan for 2-3 hours and think its their best friend they havent seen for 15-20 years then come in and out of it for a few moments and realize its just youre book bag. And just the fact that their could be a bad trip, im sure once you see those horrible images its stuck in youre mind through out the trip and you cant get them out.

Sounds like its a preaty crappy insence go me. And why people would contiune to do ita fter all the bad rep its gotten?

Cheers
 
  • #13
Nep AK you've never taken any psychoactive compounds? Do you ever drink alcohol? Everyone's "trip" so to speak is different since everyone's mind is wired differently. Just as some drunks get happy and sing and talk loudly, my old man used to get angry and throw stuff. Liqour is legal and sold on every street.. So it goes with any mind altering substance, some people may have a pleasureable experience and some may have horrific hallucinations or in teh case of the bag chat someone was really bored! Those willing to take that chance of datura poisoning from over dosing may as well get drunk and drive home from the bar, you are taking the same risk, even more so with the alcohol as you may kill someone else.

Anyhoo, my thoughts are that people want to see if it's bad rap is warranted so they imbibe some of the plant "to see what will happen". I fully believe that if our newspapers would stop printing huge photos of the plant saying "the hallucinogenic garden plants" kids would have no idea that these shrubs and vines had any properties. How many 14 year olds (other than the ones on this board) are amateur botanists and can identify plants by memory from something they read in a book? When I was a kid there was only one shape of leaf I knew about from seeing it on tee shirts and hats...  

I love growing them though, very fast and floriferous. And the history of the plant interests me a great deal. Should I ever get a house I will have a whole herbal garden of ancient medicinal plants as that historical sort of gardening fascinates me.

I should have 2 whites (D. inoxa) and 2 double yellows D. metel's open tonight at the same time. My purple D. metel looks like it's getting ready to fork (begin flowering) D. stramontinum var. tatula, D. ferox (armored datura with huge spiked pods & small flowers) and D. wrightii (largest flower species) should be the next ones.  I'll get pics as the new species open.
 
  • #14
Yes Ive taken phsycoactive compounds. but None the less you can still have a BAD trip and generaly certain things happen with a certain drug. On datura plants, people will some times or generaly see inanimant objects become objects of reality what they think is real. Wich is why this drug gets its rep, so does Night shade. While their are many variables, the general out come of taking the herb.

And it is a part of the whole trend of wanting to rebel against their parents and the world. I know I did. and Thats acutaly what got me into horticulture/botany. But I dont interact in this kind of social recreational use any more.
 
  • #15
worst trip ever. intense delierium and hospitalization, followed by a week (spring break) of phycho evaluation. second time i remember stuff, and it was a neutral trip. nonsense halucinations and tentacles growing out of the ceiling like The Grudge. i was strung out for a whole day. after i came down and woke up it was noon, and i thought it was amazing that is was daylight at midnight.  DONT DO IT. fine line between tripping and overdosing.
 
  • #16
If they are potted you can bring them in and sleep with the open flowering plant next to the bed at night (make sure pets can't get at it while you're sleeping). Some people say it causes nightmares to sleep with Daturas in the room but I never remember my dreams.

I suppose if the neighbors start to ask why I'm screaming "el diablo!!!" at 5 am then I'll know something is up that I don't recall...
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