September 2011. Dark Angels: Angel’s Trumpet sure is pretty, but don’t try to make tea out of it.

We saw some Angel’s Trumpet plants in bloom the other day, and this was not unusual in our old Baton Rouge neighborhood south of LSU, while Ed reports that he has not seen many in Lake Charles; probably because his travels around town are very limited. These are of interest to us Lawnchair Gardeners for several reasons. First, we used to know these by their botanical name: Datura, of which there are a number of different species, but the taxonomists have been up to their mischief again, and for several years now these plants have been called Brugsmania.  Next, several of the species contain powerful narcotic substances, although in very dilute amounts, and we may be familiar with some of their products without knowing it.

As for the latter, when we were teaching the Lagniappe course in Lawnchair Gardening for mature people (over fifty years of age), and we talked about Daturas, we told our class that there was a pharmaceutical product in which the list of active ingredients included hamamelis and stramonium, and we were sure that most of them were familiar with the product, but may not have looked at the ingredient list. It is Preparation H. Hamamelis is witch hazel (Hamamelis japonica, and stramonium is the species name of Datura stramonium, Jimson Weed, both of which are astringent).

As for the narcotics, a few years ago we read where concerned people in Florida became aware that adventurous teens were ingesting the small amounts of nectar in the flowers of the Angel Trumpet plant, reported over the teen grapevine to make one high.  There was some discussion of making it illegal to grow the plant, but this never got past the talking stage.

About the same time, we read somewhere about a potent narcotic derived from Datura arborea, a tree found growing in Columbia (where else?) which causes compliance, including truth-telling in people ingesting small amounts (2 mg. is a lethal dose), as well as amnesia for several days. This appeared to be a perfect “date rape” drug.  Fortunately, we have not become aware of it being wide-spread.

The active principle in this drug is scopolamine, used for a while as a “truth serum,” until replaced by sodium pentothal and other materials. But listen to this: There is a natural antidote to the drug, physostigmine, produced in parts of west Africa by a vine, called the Calabar bean (Physostigma venosum), where it is used to resolve some legal cases by having opponents eat portions of the bean and seeing who gets the sickest, or in the case of capital offenses, who survives.  This is like the Sasswood Trials that Leon learned about in Liberia and wrote about some time back. The plant used is Erythrobeum guieensis.