556 



ANNUAL, REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1920. 



it is easily distinguished. Its most striking characteristic is the black 

 color of the seeds and the violet-striped throat of the flaring 10-toothed 

 trumpet-shaped corolla. (See pi. 5.) Mr. O. F. Cook, in his field 

 notes of 1916, records this species as occurring, together with Datura 

 meteloides, in irrigated fields of a Pima village called Santan. In 

 comparing the two species he notes that Datura discolor has smaller 

 flowers, with a narrower corolla tube and a more abruptly expanded 

 trumpet-shaped, rather than funnel-shaped, limb, and the throat of 

 the corolla longitudinally striped with violet-colored lines. The 



calyx tube is prominently angled 

 or prismatic in form, drying back 

 nearly to the base soon after 

 flowering, and leaving the base it- 

 self to expand, very much as in 

 the case of D. meteloides. The 

 nodding capsule (fig. 7) has longer 

 spines finely pubescent when 

 young. The fruit is fleshy at first, 

 although not so juicy as in D. 

 meteloides, at length becoming 

 brittle and dry, but never hard 

 and Woody as in Datura stramo- 

 nium. The seeds are black, as 

 stated above, not light brown as in 

 D. meteloides, and they are smaller 

 than in the latter species. The 

 fresh foliage of D. discolor has 

 Fig. 7. — Datura discolor Berhn., showing only a trace of the pleasant odor 



nodding fruit and black seeds. given off fey the geeds and bru i sed 



tissues of D. meteloides. This odor is not the fragrance of the 

 flowers, nor the nauseous smell of the Jamestown weed, but a pleasant 

 odor suggesting parched sesame or other seeds rich in oil. It is 

 easy to believe that this pleasant flavor was attractive to primitive 

 seed eaters, who were thus led to experience the intoxication of 

 Datura y a mysterious effect which caused people in many parts of 

 the world to attribute to related plants a supernatural power, mak- 

 ing them " as gods," able to confer at will with spirits. At Bard, 

 California, on the Yuma Reclamation Project, Datura meteloides is 

 rare, and the smaller-flowered Datura discolor abundant. 



THE JAMESTOWN WEED AND ITS ALLIES. 

 Plate 6. 

 Hernandez, in his great work on the products of New Spain, already 

 referred to, gives an account of Datura stramonium under the head- 

 ing De Tlapatl: Stramonio, accompanied by an illustration rather 



