Scientific name – Datura stramonium
Family – Solanaceae
Datura, (genus Datura), also called thorn apple, genus of about nine species of poisonous flowering plants in the nightshade family (Solanaceae). Several Datura species are collected for use as drugs, and others are cultivated for their showy flowers. Many are considered weeds in warm parts of the world and commonly grow along roadsides and other disturbed habitats. Datura species are often confused with members of the related genus Brugmansia, which features a number of ornamental trees and shrubs known as angel’s trumpets.
Datura species are herbaceous sprawling annuals or short-lived perennials, characterized by large trumpet-shaped flowers. The fragrant flowers can be white, yellow, pink, or purple and produce a spiny capsule fruit with numerous seeds. The leaves are simple and alternately arranged, with lobed, wavy, or entire margins. The plants contain potent alkaloids, including atropine, scopolamine, and hyoscyamine, and can be fatal if ingested.
Plant 60-120 cm or more tall, branched, pubescent; the branches often purplish. Leaves 8-17 x 4-13 cm, ovate or broadly so, sinuately dentate, minutely puberulose, cuneate.
Petiole 2-5 cm long. Calyx 3.5-5.5 cm long, tubular, 5-dentate, puberulous, persistent. Lobes 6-9 mm long, strongly reflexed in fruit, apiculate. Corolla 7-10 cm long, white or purplish suffused; limb up to 8 cm broad, shallowly 5-lobed, with the lobes, ± triangularacuminate. Anthers ± 5 mm long, with the lobes narrow oblong, usually white. Capsule erect, 3-4 cm long, ovoid, spiny and densely pubescent, splitting by 4 valves; spines up to 5 mm long. Seeds 3 mm long, reniform, reticulate-foveolate, and black.
Properties –
Guna (qualities) -Laghu (lightness), Rooksha (dryness
Rasa (taste) – Tikta (bitter), Katu (pungent)
Vipaka – Katu (undergoes pungent taste conversion after digestion)
Veerya – Ushna (hot potency)
• Effect on Tridosha – useful to balance Kapha and Vata Dosha
• Pharmacological action – Sedative, Antispasmodic, Anti asthmatic, Bronchodilator,
Chemical composition –
Imbibed with powerful hallucinogenic and deliriant properties, Datura has a mother lode of –
• Antioxidants, Flavonoids, Alkaloids, Organic compounds, and minerals.
The bioactive components in Datura include –
• Daturine, Daturadiol, Hyoscine, Atropine, Noratropine, Fastudine, Allantoin, Hypocyamine, Norhyosciamine, Tropane, Meteolodine, Scopolamine, Mucilage, Albumen, Vitamin C, Niacin, and Malic Acids.
Benefits –
The abundance of antioxidants and ascorbic acid present in Datura makes it one of the well-known folk remedies for improving the immune system, fighting microbes and shielding the body against various infections.