The Medicinal Herb Info site was created to help educate visitors about the often forgotten wisdom of the old ways of treating illnesses. Many of today's drugs and medicines were originally derived from natural ingredients, combinations of plants and other items found in nature.

We are not suggesting that you ignore the help of trained medical professionals, simply that you have additional options available for treating illnesses. Often the most effective treatment involves a responsible blend of both modern and traditional treatments.

We wish you peace and health!

Jimson Weed

Scientific Names

Jimson Weed

  • Datura stramonium L.
  • Nightshade family

Common Names

  • Apple Peru
  • Devil’s apple
  • Devil’s trumpet
  • Dhatura
  • Feng-ch’ieh-erh (Chinese name)
  • Jamestown weed
  • Jimpson weed
  • Mad-apple
  • Nightshade
  • Peru-apple
  • Stinkweed
  • Stinkwort
  • Stramonium
  • Thorn-apple

Back to Top


Parts Usually Used

Leaves, root, seed
Back to Top


Description of Plant(s) and Culture

A poisonous annual weed of the nightshade family, with foul-smelling leaves, prickly fruit, and white or purplish, trumpet-shaped or funnel-shaped flowers and is hallucinogenic. A large, whitish root produces the round, glabrous, yellowish-green, branching stem which grows 1-5 feet high. The leaves are alternate, dark green above and lighter beneath, ovate, and irregularly incised and toothed. The flowers are large, white, and showy; grow on short peduncles in the axils of the branches from June to September. The slightly spiraled blooms make this plant easy to identify. The four-parted, chambered, spiny seedpods are distinctive, too. The fruit is an ovate, prickly capsule containing many black seeds.

Although this plant produces useful alkaloids, it is violently toxic.

Another variety: Another plant (Datura meteloides) was known as Jimson Weed by the Native Americans. They made a tea of the plant to wash a horse with it when he tried to stray. They called the plant “Moip.” It has a heavy root, which when soaked, ground and boiled, the tea renders the drinker unconscious. The drinker has visions, but must be watched to prevent wandering off in search of some lost article.
Back to Top


Where Found

Found in Europe, Asia, and North and South America. A fetid plant found in waste places, pastures, old fields, gardens, and roadsides. Usually found in sandy soil.
Back to Top


Medicinal Properties

Anodyne, antispasmodic, hypnotic, narcotic.
Back to Top


Legends, Myths and Stories

Jimsonweed has an interesting history; it was/is used in witchcraft or wicca.

It has been used for hallucinogenic and medicinal purposes since ancient times. The Greek priests of Apollo used it to produce prophecies. In 38 BC Antony’s soldiers ate some of the plant while retreating and became ridiculously incoherent. The plant’s name is derived from a similar incident involving soldiers in Jamestown in 1676. They too ate the plant and were good for little but clowning for eleven days. As a result, the plant came to be called Jamestown weed, which evolved into jimson weed.

Its use was supposedly introduced to medieval Europe by gypsies who brought it from India. The gypsies smoked it to experience hallucinations. Because it also gives the sensation of flying and releases inhibitions, especially in women, jimson weed was associated in the Middle Ages with witchcraft, Witches inhaled its vapors while casting spells.

Jimson weed has been taken for its narcotic and hallucinogenic effects by Native American tribes from the southwestern United States to South America. Many tribes used it to induce visions in priests, medicine men, and puberty rites. The Zuni and many California Indian tribes set broken bones after administering jimson weed as an anesthetic. The Mariposa Indians gave it to its women as an aphrodisiac.

The name stinkweed refers to the narcotic odor which is unpleasant.

The plant is gathered in the fall and slowly dried in the shade.
Back to Top


Uses

Jimson weed is a dangerous plant in inexperienced hands, and an overdose is likely to be fatal.

A tincture is sometimes given for spasmodic coughing, chronic laryngitis, a narcotic poison, mania, epilepsy, delirium tremens (DTs), typhus, and asthma. Externally, used for neuralgia, bruises, swellings,saddle sores on horses, rattlesnake bites, tarantula bites, and rheumatism. The leaves have been made into cigarettes for smokers with asthma and other respiratory problems. In South America, jimson weed is believed to be an aphrodisiac.

The whole plant contains atropine and other alkaloids, used to dilate the pupils of the eyes; causes dry mouth, depresses bladder muscles, impedes action of the parasympathetic nerves; used in Parkinson’s disease; also contains scopolamine, used in patched behind the ear for vertigo. Folk cancer remedy.
Back to Top


Warning

Violently toxic. Causes severe hallucinations. Many fatalities reported.

Those who collect this plant may end up with swollen eyelids.

Do not ingest any part of jimson weed. Licorice (Glycyrrhiza) has been suggested as an antidote.

Keep this plant away from where children play. Do not use without medical supervision. An overdose may be fatal.

Back to Top


Bibliography

Buy It! The Herb Book, by John Lust, Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY. copyright 1974.

Buy It! Chinese Medicinal Herbs, compiled by Shih-Chen Li, Georgetown Press, San Francisco, California, 1973.

Buy It! Indian Uses of Native Plants, by Edith Van Allen Murphey, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, copyright 1958, print 1990

Buy It! Indian Herbalogy of North America, by Alma R. Hutchens, Shambala Publications, Inc., Horticultural Hall, 300 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, 1973

Buy It! Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants, by Steven Foster and James A. Duke., Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10000

Herbal Gardening, compiled by The Robison York State Herb Garden, Cornell Plantations, Matthaei Botanical Gardens of the University of Michigan, University of California Botanical Garden, Berkeley., Pantheon Books, Knopf Publishing Group, New York, 1994, first edition

Buy It! The Yoga of Herbs: An Ayurvedic Guide to Herbal Medicine, by Dr. David Frawley & Dr. Vasant Lad, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, Second edition, 1988.

Buy It! Webster’s New World Dictionary, Third College Edition, Victoria Neufeldt, Editor in Chief, New World Dictionaries: A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 15 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10023

Buy It! The Rodale Herb Book: How to Use, Grow, and Buy Nature’s Miracle Plants (An Organic gardening and farming book), edited by William H. Hylton, Rodale Press, Inc. Emmaus, PA, 18049., 1974

Back to Top

Share