I'VE GOT A DATE WITH AN ANGEL...

Should Datura stramonium appear in your garden unbidden as it easily can, please enjoy it. Commonly called Jimson Weed or Thorn Apple it is a gorgeous plant. Unfortunately it is only an annual. The fast-growing plant with its’ many 4 inch unfurling white or violet-tinged flowers would be very acceptable as a perennial.

 Do not be dissuaded by any horror stories you may hear.  It does have a bad reputation as a producer of strange hallucinations. The abuser does not know the apparitions from their normally sane state. Some imagine that they have been dismembered and their body parts scattered about or that an army of insects are wriggling and scratching under their skin. If you like that sort of thing then this is the sort of thing you will like. It is not going to kill you but you just might wish you were dead.

      None of this happens to you or your children from the mere presence of Jimson Weed. You must be proactive and learn the techniques of poisoning your brain. All such knowledge is freely available on the World Wide Web so while young children will be perfectly safe, parents might be wise to monitor the Internet use of their young adults. The explicit information is all there.

   Angel’s Trumpet was once included with Datura but is now Brugmansia. They both produce egg-sized prickly capsules that split open in four parts with many small black seeds. The developing capsules of Jimson Weed can very easily be removed  or the whole plant might be dispatched once flowering is over and that it is only an annual after all. Better yet would be to allow the seeds to ripen and plant them where you want them and not rely on the whim of sparrows that drop them where ever they please.
     Brugmansia seed could also be saved but they are  very tender plants from South America (Zone 9). You would need a heated greenhouse with a sufficiently high roof to accomodate their height of 2 to 3 metres.
     It is an old joke and an obvious one but I will use it anyway. That if you ingested either plant then the next sound you hear will be angel's trumpets.