Datura Trivia

Shawn Pollard pollards22@yahoo.com
Mon, 30 Dec 2013 07:08:34 PST
The sacred jimsonweed (Datura wrightii / meteloides) is the most perennial of the southwestern U.S. species and can get become a large sprawling monster when happy in cultivation.  I'm not aware of it developing a geophytic root, though.  To be reliably perennial, it needs tough love.  The most perennial individuals I have observed, returning year after year, were at middle elevations (3,000-5,000 feet) in southeastern Arizona and West Texas where they freeze back to their roots every winter.

Interestingly, "jimsonweed" is reportedly a corruption of "Jamestown weed."  There is apparently at least one Datura species native to Virginia whose special properties were made known to the early colonists.

Shawn Pollard
Yuma, AZ



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On Sun, 12/29/13, Aad van Beek <avbeek1@hotmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [pbs] Onward through the fog! - More Drivel and Trivia :-)
 To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org>
 Date: Sunday, December 29, 2013, 8:16 PM
 
 Leo wrote
 
 > We have several bulbs in the lower Sonoran Desert,
 including what we know as
 > Dichelostemma pulchellum, as well as Hesperocallis
 undulata. There are also Asclepias
 > and Datura species with undergound storage organs.
 
 Datura are mostly annuals and some of them can become very
 weedy. Never seen a datura with underground storage organ.
 Do you have a name and picture of such a datura.
 
 Aad
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