What do you think about flowers when you see them?
“wow look at the colors of this one’s petals” or “oh wow this one smells nice”
i’m sure you could say the same for this one as well....
But i am sorry to say to you, dear viewer, that this little beauty is one of the most dangerous deliriant (a substance that causes a state of severe confusion where your brain completely loses track of what’s real.) plants ever. But how can something this beautiful be so dangerous and deadly, you might ask? Well, i’m here to explain just that.
Part 1: What is it?
Ok now that i dropped that bomb, let me explain a little. This litte-le guy is Datura stramonium, or you can just call it “Datura Flower”, and it is mostly native to Mexico/Central America[3] and as i said, it’s a very powerful and dangerous deliriant flower. “What is a deliriant though??” you might ask. As i explained in my little ( ) section, it’s a substance that causes a state of severe confusion where the brain completely loses track of what is real. This is even more dangerous than the usual hallucinogens we have knowledge of. Let me explain in a simpler way...
Here are the usual categories of these..”substances”
Psychedelics: These dudes make everything look and feel weird, colors, shapes, the whole deal, but the person usually still knows that what they are seeing is the drug’s doing and is aware of that. Known examples are LSD and magic mushrooms.
Dissociatives: These bros make you feel disconnected from your own body or the room around you, kinda like watching yourself from the outside, almost like being under anesthesia. Known examples here are Ketamine, PCP and DXM (i don’t know much either, don’t worry).
Deliriants: And the infamous deliriants. With these, the hallucinations feel 100% real and you can’t control them or even tell they’re fake, almost like those weird “dreamcore” videos. Basically losing your mind and your touch with reality, if what we live in can be called a reality, that is (wink wink foreshadowing). Known examples are Brugmansia, henbane and Datura (wow shocker).[1][2]
So deliriants make you go literally insane and lose your mind. Scary, right? But more on the effects themselves and the flower later; before that, it’s the usual history lesson time.
Part 2: History Lesson
Sooo according to my not so professional research, i have found that this baby (baby being an incredibly dangerous plant) was first noticed/named in ancient India, where they named it “thorn-apple” in their language, and it was apparently associated with the worship of Shiva (Hindu god of destruction, transformation, and yoga).[4][5] Also a fun fact: some professional poisoners (a funny word) were called “Dhatureeas”....[5] Also also, some evidence suggests Datura reached India around the 2nd century CE, which makes it one of the most ancient flower introductions.[4]
After that, we have sources from the Aztecs/Mexico, where they called it “toloache”, which apparently means “the plant with the nodding head”.[4] And apparently the Aztecs used this flower in medicine,[6] which i will get into in a bit.
We also have more sources from Native Americans and Britain, but i couldn’t find anything interesting from them. But in the end, the known name “Datura” (the latin version more like) was given by Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist known as the father of modern plant naming, in 1753.[7] And he gave the name known today in his book Species Plantarum (will probably read).[8] Seems like a cool dude to talk to honestly xd. But this was the shortified version of Datura’s history, now the fun stuff.
Part 3: Effects/Poison
Soo, a little more biology and chemistry and the drug/poison side of Datura a little bit.
Chemically, each part of this plant is dangerous because it contains something called “tropane alkaloids”, which are a family of natural plant poisons, and it’s said to be the most toxic in the seeds apparently.[9]
And these tropane alkaloids are what’s called “anticholinergic”, which basically means they block a messenger chemical (acetylcholine) that your nerves use to talk to each other and to your muscles, it seems.[10]
And by doing that, these same chemicals (that i won’t name because) disturb the normal brain functions basically. i’m trying to keep these a bit more simple because most of the information is tied to complicated chemical names, but this is a bit more simplified version of it. In the end though, including all of these chemicals and natural toxins, this Cutipie can:
-Cause delirium in the brain
-Cause huge pupils and blur your vision
-Make your heart race uncontrollably (because the slowing mechanism gets disturbed)
-Impair sweating, which will cause overheating
-And cause digestion problems on top[11]
So yeah, these are the only things i understood, which makes it even more scary and dangerous. But after all of this you might say “But i heard datura was a form of drug, why or how was this used as a drug?” and to that i can say it was used apparently, yes, but it doesn’t end the way people wanted it to, it seems.
So as we said, people used this flower as a drug, and the main reasons they used it were: one, because it is a wild flower and can even grow on the side of the roads, and two, it is even sold as a decorative garden plant, so it is easy to get your hands on.[3][12] But it is incredibly unpredictable and dangerous (as we said abt 10,000 times) and can cause multiorgan failure, irregular heartbeat, coma, seizures and many more than i have the knowledge of.[13][14] It has been said that it is treatable and recoverable with hospital aid, but how much someone took and how fast they get help play a huge role in survivability overall.[14]
This is the Jamestown account from The History and Present State of Virginia (Book II, 1705):
“This being an early plant, was gather’d very young for a boil’d salad, by some of the soldiers sent thither to quell the rebellion of Bacon; and some of them ate plentifully of it, the effect of which was a very pleasant comedy, for they turned natural fools upon it for several days: one would blow up a feather in the air; another would dart straws at it with much fury; and another, stark naked, was sitting up in a corner like a monkey, grinning and making mows at them; a fourth would fondly kiss and paw his companions, and sneer in their faces with a countenance more antic than any in a Dutch droll. In this frantic condition they were confined, lest they should, in their folly, destroy themselves; though it was observed that all their actions were full of innocence and good nature. Indeed, they were not very cleanly; for they would have wallowed in their own excrements, if they had not been prevented. A thousand such simple tricks they played, and after eleven days returned themselves again, not remembering anything that had passed.”
Robert Beverley Jr., The History and Present State of Virginia, 1705[15]
I know you might get lazy reading it (i was too), but it explains the historical record of what happened, so i thought it would be a good thing to add to this article.
Other than this older entry, we still have cases around the world where people got sick or died from eating datura or food that was accidentally mixed with it,[12][16] so yeah... i guess it’s dangerous, really. “Wait, what do you mean medical usage??” i know, right? Crazy stuff, but let me explain.
Part 4: Medical Usage
So kinda similar to using bee venom or snake venom, datura’s poison apparently is used for medical treatment as well. But of course it is controlled and carefully prepared by scientists in a laboratory, and it is used as:
Scopolamine → used for motion sickness and nausea after surgery, famously as a skin patch worn behind the ear.[17]
Atropine → used for dilating pupils during eye exams, treating bradycardia (dangerously slow heart rate), and counteracting nerve agent poisoning (an antidote against chemical weapons and some pesticides!).[18]
So even a strong toxic plant such as Datura can be used in the medical field as a medicine if it’s prepared and worked on. Quite a plot twist, huh?
Conclusion/My Thoughts
Sooooo in conclusion, i believe Datura is a veeeeery interesting plant overall with incredible capabilities. i don’t know if it’s because i find poisonous/toxic plants interesting in general or not, though. But in the end, it can be used in both good ways, as in medicine, and in bad ways, as in drugs, so a bit of a yin yang of a flower, kinda. Aside from all of that, Datura is a beautiful flower that brings color into this world, just be careful around it tho and don’t try to eat it curiously :)
