Southwest Colorado Wildflowers, Datura wrightii

Datura wrightii is a strikingly massive plant -- and a deadly plant. It contains numerous poisonous alkaloids including atropine, hyoscyamine, and hyoscine and every year these produce a number of deaths in the United States. Datura wrightii's narcotic and hallucinogenic properties have made it part of sacred rituals and wild-eyed experimentations -- both of which have resulted in numerous deaths.

Many, many plants are in whole or in part palatable and nutritional, eaten directly from the plant or after boiling, drying, cooking, etc. Datura wrightii is just plain deadly.

The genus name was given by Linnaeus in 1753 and in 1859 Eduard Regel (1815-1892) named the species for Charles Wright, a botanist in the Southwest who collected Datura wrightii in Texas in the 1850s. (More biographical information.)

Datura wrightii (Sacred Datura, Jimsonweed)
Solanaceae (Nightshade Family)

Semi-desert. Openings. Spring, summer.
McElmo Canyon, June 12, 2007.

Sacred Datura is an easy plant to identify and a fabulous flower to gaze on. Leaves are up to 10 inches long, flared trumpet flowers are 5-9 inches long, and the overall plant is often several feet high and a sprawling four or five feet across.

"Datura" apparently comes from either the Arabic "Tatorah", the Hindustani "Dhatura", or the Latin "dare". According to Harrington (in his Edible Native Plants of the Rocky Mountains) "Jimsonweed "is a corruption of "Jamestown Weed", a name given to a related Datura that poisoned a number of soldiers in Jamestown in 1676.

Datura wrightii (Sacred Datura, Jimsonweed)
Solanaceae (Nightshade Family)

Semi-desert. Openings. Spring, summer.
McElmo Canyon, June 12, 2007.

Datura wrightii (Sacred Datura, Jimsonweed)
Solanaceae (Nightshade Family)

Semi-desert. Openings. Spring, summer.
McElmo Canyon, June 12, 2007.

Datura wrightii (Sacred Datura, Jimsonweed)
Solanaceae (Nightshade Family)

Semi-desert. Openings. Spring, summer.
McElmo Canyon, June 12, 2007.