Thorn Apple

stramonium: a name used by Theophrastus for this species

Erect, usually dichotomously branched annual or short-lived perennial herb, up to 1.5 m tall. Branches often purple-tinged and glandular, hairless or sparsely hairy when young; all parts unpleasantly scented. Leaves alternate, ovate, rhombic-ovate to elliptic, up to 20 × 15 cm, thinly textured, almost hairless to minutely pubescent, particularly near the base; base sometimes decurrent into the petiole; margin coarsely and irregularly toothed. Flowers solitary in the forks of the branches, erect. Calyx long and tube-like, up to 2.5-5 cm long, 5-angled with triangular-lanceolate unequal apical lobes, 4-10 mm long. Corolla white to pale mauve-purple, sometimes darker purple in the tube, 6-11 cm long, slightly 5-6-lobed with narrow acuminate tips. Fruit erect, almost round to ovoid-ellipsoid, up to 5 × 4.5 cm (including spines), densely covered with slender unequal spines, up to 16 mm long, yellow-green to brown when ripe, regularly dehiscent. All parts of the plant are poisonous.

Common

Native to North America. Now an almost cosmopolitan weed.