Scientific: Datura wrightii
Common: sacred thorn apple, Indian apple, western jimson weed
Family: Solanaceae
Origin: Disturbed sites such as along roadsides, river and canal embankments or arroyo washouts (along with used plastic water bottles) in northern Mexico and the southwestern United States.
Pronounciation: Da-TUR-a wrigh-TEE-i
Hardiness zones
Sunset All zones as an annual, short-lived perennial in zones 10-24
USDA All zones as an annual, short-lived perennial in zones 9-11
Landscape Use: Native gardens, medicinal gardens, spiritual gardens, desert resoration.
Form & Character: Prostrate and spreading, tender, informal, aggressive, foreboding, dangerous, yet innocent.
Growth Habit: Evergreen, summer annual to short-lived herbaceous perennial vine. In the lower desert, Datura thrives during the desert monsoon season growing rapidly to a spread of 15 to 20 feet. Low and prostrate, rarely exceeding 2-feet tall.
Foliage/Texture: Large, slightly pubescent dull green leaves to 4-inches long with lesser width, alternate, margins smooth and wavy, deltoid to lanceolate shaped, leaf venation pinnate, petioles pubscent; medium coarse texture.
Flowers & Fruits: Large, spectacular (even in bud), elongated and tubular white flowers to 8-inches long borne singly on terminal meristems, sweetly fragrant, petals fused, sometimes the flowers (as they senesce) will become purplish in color. Flower petals have five narrow points spaced symmetrically around the petal margins. It can bloom from April to October. Fruits are rounded, greenish, spiked, fading to brown after maturity.
Seasonal Color: White flowers during later summer and early fall in the lower desert, April to October elsewhere.
Temperature: Heat loving
Light: Full to partial sun, and can even grow fairly well in shade.
Soil: Tolerant of soil alkalinity.
Watering: Regular irrigations in desert areas to mimic summer monsoon rains.
Pruning: Little to none required.
Propagation: Seed
Disease and Pests: None
Additional comments: Datura is a striking spreading herbaceous plant for desert-themed gardens. Datura is a plant that has a long-standing, spiritual relationship with native American peoples because of its often dangerous hallucinogenic properties.
Toxicology warning: All parts of Datura plants contain dangerous levels of scopolamine, a levo-duboisine and hyoscine tropane alkaloid drug with muscarinic antagonist effects, and might be fatal if ingested by humans or other animals, including livestock and pets. In some places, Datura sp. are prohibited to buy, sell and/or cultivate.
