Stramonium

(Datura stramonium L., Solanaceae)

Also Called: Datura, Thornapple, Jimson Weed, Stinkweed.

Description: Annual plant, 30-120cm (1-4ft) high. Stems stout, round, dichotomously branched.
Leaves sometimes greater than 20cm (8in), petiolate, ovate to triangular, margins broadly sinuate-dentate.
Flowers solitary in the axils of leaves with large, white, funnel-shaped corolla.
Fruit: a thorny capsule (rarely unarmed) dehiscing by 4 valves and containing many black seeds.
All parts of the plant have a disagreeable and nauseating odour.
Flowering: June-September.

Parts Used: Dried leaf and seeds.

Habitat, Cultivation and Collection: Indigenous in the Near East but found wild throughout much of Europe in waste places, fields, etc. but found only for a few years in the same place.
Introduced in Britain, more or less naturalised, but not common.
Cultivated for medicinal use by direct sowing of seed (April) in well manured fields in rows 50cm (20in) apart.
Leaves are collected when the plant is in flower and also at a later period.
Seeds are collected when the capsule dehisces and when the seeds have become black; unripe seeds are brown and should not be used.
Yield: 15-25kg (33-55lb) of leaves and 3-8kg (6.5-17.5lb) of seeds per are (120 sq yd).

Constituents and Action: Stramonium contains the same alkaloids as belladonna, but in different proportions.
Its action resembles that of belladonna on the intestinal tract, on the sweat glands, the digestive glands and on the pupil of the eye.
In medicinal doses the excitant action on the central nervous system is much less but the sedative action is maintained.

CAUTION: All parts of the plant are poisonous.

Usage: Because of its poisonous nature stramonium should not be used except under medical supervision.
To relieve asthma the tincture is used and also anti-asthmatic cigarettes in which stramonium is an ingredient.