Tuesday, June 11, 2013


BEAUTIFUL,  but deadly...
JIMSON WEED
Datura stramonium








Georgia O'Keeffe did at least five paintings of the wild jimson weed. Every part of the plant is toxic. Small amounts of the plant, probably the seeds, were used by some native American groups, usually ingested or smoked by shamans to induce visions. It is a dangerous plant that can cause death. It is common all over the United States. I got these photographs on Friars Road not far from the San Diego River.






6 comments:

John B. said...

Actually a gateway flower to new possibility....death is the home of growth...
agape'
JB

Anonymous said...

I love Georgia O'Keeffe! I've been to her art museum in Santa Fe, toured her home in Abique, hike around the white bluffs that she painted, have some smooth river rocks like the ones in her home & was mesmerized by the cottonwood fluff that piled up like snow along a creek near an inn at Abique. We toured her ranch and enjoyed many of the landscapes that appear in her paintings. I loved that part of New Mexico. Jimson weed still grows inside the Abique home.
S. D.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful. I don't think I've seen this color.
Clyde

Jerral Miles said...

The plants are quite different, one from the other, even growing in close proximity. The level of toxicity it also different from plant to plant. Very strange, indeed.

Anonymous said...

I had no idea about this plant.
Is it like poison ivy when you touch it?
M. L.

Jerral Miles said...

It wouldn't be a good idea to put your fingers in your mouth after touching the plant, any part of it; but it's actually not dangerous in the way poison ivy is dangerous. It's a plant that adolescents sometimes hear about and try for the same reasons they may try LSD. It'd extremely dangerous when used in that way. Grazing cattle can be affected by it, so farmers must try to keep it out of their fields and pastures.