Laura Wright 
Some plants kill quietly.
Others announce themselves with thorns, bitter flavors, unpleasant odors, or colors that seem almost designed as warnings.
Then there is jimsonweed, a striking plant with trumpet-shaped flowers, spiny seed capsules, and a reputation stretching from colonial Virginia to medicine, poisoning, hallucination, and folklore.
Its scientific name is Datura stramonium.
It has been called thorn apple, devil’s trumpet, mad apple, Jamestown weed, and several other names accumulated during its long association with human beings.
And one of those names originated with a particularly strange episode in early American history.
The Jamestown Weed
The name jimsonweed is a corruption of Jamestown weed, referring to Jamestown, Virginia.
The association became famous following an incident in 1676, during the period of Bacon’s Rebellion.
British soldiers sent to Virginia reportedly gathered the plant and cooked it as food.
That was a serious mistake.
Jimsonweed contains potent tropane alkaloids capable of producing severe anticholinergic poisoning. Victims may experience confusion, agitation, hallucinations, abnormal behavior, increased heart rate, elevated body temperature, seizures, coma, and potentially death.
The soldiers survived.
But before recovering, they reportedly spent days in a state of extraordinary delirium.
The incident became famous enough that the plant itself eventually carried Jamestown’s name.
Eleven Days of Madness
The best-known historical description appeared in Robert Beverley’s The History and Present State of Virginia, published in 1705.
Beverley described soldiers who ate the plant and became what he called “natural fools” for several days.
Their behavior was bizarre.
One supposedly blew a feather into the air while another furiously threw pieces of straw at it. Another sat naked in a corner grinning and making faces.
Their companions confined them for their own protection.
According to Beverley’s account, the effects lasted eleven days before the men returned to themselves, apparently remembering very little of what had happened.
The episode transformed an otherwise ordinary-looking plant into one of colonial Virginia’s stranger botanical legends.
A Beautiful Poison
Jimsonweed can be remarkably attractive.
Its large trumpet-shaped flowers may be white or tinged with violet or purple. The fruits develop into distinctive capsules covered with sharp spines.
Inside are numerous seeds.
The plant also produces an unpleasant odor when its foliage is crushed, and its taste has been described as bitter and disagreeable.
Those characteristics might seem sufficient to discourage anyone from eating it.
History suggests otherwise.
Every part of the plant contains toxic compounds, although concentrations can vary considerably between individual plants and different portions of the same plant.
That unpredictability is part of what makes Datura particularly dangerous.
There is no reliable visual clue indicating how potent a particular specimen might be.
The Poison Inside
The principal toxic compounds associated with jimsonweed include atropine, scopolamine, and hyoscyamine.
These substances interfere with the action of acetylcholine within the nervous system.
The resulting poisoning can produce an extraordinary combination of physical and psychological symptoms.
The mouth becomes extremely dry.
The pupils dilate.
Vision becomes blurred.
The heart races.
Body temperature may rise.
The victim becomes confused.
Then the hallucinations may begin.
These aren’t necessarily the colorful distortions popularly associated with psychedelic drugs.
Datura delirium can be far more convincing.
A poisoned person may interact with people who aren’t present, perform imaginary tasks, speak to nonexistent companions, or experience terrifying visions without realizing that anything unusual is happening.
The victim may not simply see something that isn’t there.
They may believe completely that it is there.
Visions That Seem Real
That distinction has given Datura a particularly dark reputation.
A person experiencing an ordinary hallucination may retain some awareness that perception has been altered.
Datura can produce delirium.
Reality itself becomes unreliable.
Someone may hold a conversation with a person who doesn’t exist and only later discover that they were alone.
Objects appear and disappear.
People may believe they have traveled somewhere despite never leaving the room.
Insects and animals are sometimes reported.
So are disturbing perceptions involving the body.
And the experience can continue for many hours.
For centuries, such effects made the plant simultaneously feared and sought after.
Medicine and Poison
Plants in the Datura family have a long history in traditional medicine.
Preparations were once used for conditions ranging from respiratory complaints to pain, seizures, and mental disorders. Your original article notes its historical use in treatments for madness, melancholy, and epilepsy.
The distinction between medicine and poison, however, could be extraordinarily narrow.
The same chemicals responsible for the plant’s historical medicinal uses are responsible for its toxicity.
Modern medicine still uses compounds related to those found in Datura. Atropine and scopolamine have legitimate medical applications when administered in carefully controlled doses.
The plant itself offers no such precision.
One seed, leaf, or specimen may contain substantially different concentrations from another.
That makes attempting to use jimsonweed medicinally extremely dangerous.
Datura and Magic
The strange mental effects of Datura also gave related plants an enduring place in magical and supernatural traditions.
Across different cultures, members of the genus became associated with divination, altered consciousness, sorcery, spirit communication, and ritual practices.
European traditions sometimes connected similar nightshade-family plants with witches and flying ointments.
Elsewhere, Datura species acquired ceremonial or spiritual significance of their own.
The reasons aren’t difficult to imagine.
A person consumes a plant.
Then the familiar world disappears.
They see people who aren’t there.
They hear voices.
They encounter beings invisible to everyone around them.
Eventually they awaken with confused or incomplete memories of where they have been.
Today, toxicology provides an explanation for those experiences.
But to someone living centuries ago, another explanation may have seemed equally obvious.
Perhaps the plant allowed people to see something normally hidden.
Poisoned Honey
Your original article also records the claim that jimsonweed can contaminate honey when bees visit the flowers, potentially affecting an entire hive’s product.
Poisonous honey is a genuine phenomenon associated with certain toxic plants, although the danger varies greatly according to plant species, nectar sources, concentrations, and local conditions.
The idea adds another unsettling dimension to poisonous botany.
A person doesn’t necessarily need to deliberately seek out a dangerous plant.
Sometimes its chemistry can travel.
A Modern Poisoning
Jimsonweed poisoning didn’t disappear with the Jamestown soldiers.
Your original article describes a 1995 incident involving five young men who chewed jimsonweed seeds and subsequently required emergency medical treatment. Several remained hospitalized for days.
Their reported experiences were nightmarish.
Some believed insects were crawling beneath their skin.
Others believed they were dead.
Still others reportedly perceived their own body parts scattered around the room.
Whatever attraction the plant may possess as a hallucinogen, accounts like these reveal the problem with that description.
Jimsonweed doesn’t reliably produce a pleasant altered state.
It produces poisoning.
And the person experiencing it may be incapable of recognizing how seriously ill they have become.
Devil’s Trumpet
The old names given to poisonous plants frequently reveal how earlier generations regarded them.
Thorn apple.
Mad apple.
Jamestown weed.
Devil’s trumpet.
The last is particularly appropriate.
The flowers resemble elegant trumpets opening toward the sky, while the plant producing them contains chemicals capable of creating madness, terrifying visions, and death.
Beauty and danger occupy the same stem.
Perhaps that contradiction explains some of the fascination surrounding Datura.
It doesn’t look monstrous.
It looks ornamental.
The Strange World of Jimsonweed
Jimsonweed has been poisoning human beings for centuries.
Science can now explain what happens.
Atropine, scopolamine, and hyoscyamine disrupt normal nervous-system function. Hallucinations become indistinguishable from reality because the brain itself has been thrown into delirium.
The spirits aren’t necessary.
Neither are demons, witches, or journeys into another world.
Chemistry is sufficient.
And yet the folklore surrounding Datura remains strangely understandable.
Imagine living hundreds or thousands of years ago and watching someone consume a plant before spending hours speaking to invisible people.
Later, they awaken.
Perhaps they remember fragments.
A person they met.
A place they visited.
Something standing beside them that nobody else could see.
We can say confidently that the plant altered their perception.
What they believed they encountered within that altered world is another matter entirely.
Perhaps the old healers and mystics were merely poisoning themselves.
Perhaps every vision began and ended inside the human brain.
But across centuries, people repeatedly returned to these dangerous plants despite knowing what they could do.
Some sought medicine.
Some sought intoxication.
And some believed that hidden behind the delirium was a doorway.
Jimsonweed certainly opens something.
Whether anything waits on the other side has always depended upon whom you ask.
About the Author
Wow. This just goes to show that one should be careful what one consumes. The effects just might be devastating and, even worse, irreversible. I wonder how it was discovered in the first place, hmmm.
How is this plant treated/regulated in current time? Has it been outlawed yet? No doubt the FDA has taken a part in the issue.
By the way, the last paragraph suggests not only a terrifying mystery but also an intriguing story to write. Great inspiration, in a morbid sort of way, hehe.
Thanks for sharing, Laura. 🙂
Mark
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Hi! As far as I’ve found, the mass poisoning was the first time the plant got any real attention and became known for its toxicity. I’m not aware of any special regulation, but there might be in the agricultural industry or with bee husbandry. Animals apparently stay farther away from it than people, so they won’t eat it. To me, the leaves resemble the dandelion, so I’m guessing the Jamestown people thought it was just a harmless green when they ate it.
I don’t know of any ban on it. The information I found didn’t make it sound like the plant was rampant or widespread. I think, since it’s stinky and tastes bad, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to confuse it with an edible plant, so maybe they haven’t given it that much attention.
I tend to find morbid things pretty interesting when they’re historic or well-established 😉
That certainly sounds weird. This plant resembles something along the lines of a “plant” monster that exists only in a remote area and has thriller written all over it; I can see this as the subject of a novel in more than one genre.
In any case, the information is certainly fascinating, and I agree on your last statement. The fact that such information is morbidly mysterious is exactly what makes it intriguing. Thanks for sharing. 🙂