DATURA—AN INVITING GENUS FOR 

 THE STUDY OF HEREDITY 



W. E. Safford 

 Bureau of Plant Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture 



THE GENUS Datura belongs to 

 the Solanaceae, a botanical family 

 remarkable for the narcotic proper- 

 ties of many of its members. Perhaps 

 the most celebrated of them all is the 

 mandrake {Mandragora officinalis) so 

 frequently mentioned by Shakespeare, 

 which during the Middle Ages was 

 used in amorous incantations and was 

 believed to have magical virtues. 

 According to early herbalists it would 

 shriek aloud when torn from the 

 ground, causing deafness and even 

 death to him who dared gather it. To 

 escape the penalty, a dog was used 

 by the herbalist to wrest it from the 

 ground, the earth having first been 

 carefully removed from about it and 

 the dog tied to the stalk. An early 

 illustration represents the dog writhing 

 in the agonies of death after having 

 accomplished the feat. Other famous 

 narcotics of the Old World Solanaceae 

 are the deadly nightshade (Atropa 

 belladonna), henbane (Ilyoscyamiis 

 niger) and the dutra or dhatura {Datura 

 metel) of the Hindoos. 



The last named plant derives its 

 specific name from the jous-methel, 

 or "metel nut," of the Arabic pharma- 

 copaea, described by Avicenna in the 

 eleventh century together with 7iitx- 

 myristica, or nutmeg, and nux-vomica, 

 or strychnine. From Dioscorides' 

 translation of Avicenna's description, 

 this so-called nut was recognized by 

 Matthioli and other early botanists as 

 the fruit of a solanaceous plant, which 

 was figured in 1542 by F'uchsius under 

 the name "Stramonia, or Rauchaep- 

 ffelkraut." In establishing the genus 

 Datura two centuries later, Linnaeus 

 formed a generic name from the East 

 Indian Dutra, or Dhatura, giving it a 

 Latin form, and explaining it by the 

 following pun: "Daturae, licet originis 



' Linnaeus. Hort. Cliffort, 56. 1737. 



sit peregrinae, vocabulum persistere 

 valet, cum a latina derivari potest; 

 dantur et daturae forte in Indiis posthac 

 semina a lascivis foeminis maritis 

 inertibus."^ 



Fig. 10 is reproduced from a photo- 

 graph of East Indian metel nuts in 

 the drug collection of the United States 

 National Museum. Fig. 11 is a reduced 

 reproduction of Fuchsius's illustration 

 referred to above. In this figure the 

 corolla is represented as 6-toothed, but 

 normally it is 5-toothed. 



SEVERAL VARIETIES DESCRIBED 



In establishing the specific name 

 Datura metel in the first edition of his 

 Species Plantarum (p. 179. 1753), 

 Linnaeus definitely states: "Habitat 

 in Asia, Africa," and cites his previous 

 description of it in Hortus Cliffortianus 

 (p. 55. 1737). Here it is called Datura 

 pericarpiis nutantibus globosis, ixwd is 

 identified with the Arabic metel-nut 

 and the East Indian dhatura, or dutra, 

 "by many called Stramonia." Several 

 distinct formsor varieties are described; 

 among them, a, with a double white 

 corolla (Jiore albo pleno); |8, with a 

 simple white corolla (flore violaceo 

 simplici)', 7, with a double or triple 

 \iolet corolla {flore violaceo duplici 

 triplicive): 8, with a double corolla 

 white within and violet without {flore 

 pleno, intus albo, foris violaceo). In the 

 accompanying illustrations (Fig. 12) 

 are shown the typical form of Datura 

 metel L. with simple white corolla 

 (No. 1) together with its dried fruits, 

 "pericarpiis nutantibus globosis" (No. 

 2), and its varieties "Flore albo pleno" 

 (No. 3) and "fiore pleno, inUis albo, 

 foris violaceo" (No. 4), the two last 

 named photographed from plants 

 propagated at Arlington by Mr. H. A. 

 Allard of the Bureau of Plant Induslrv. 



178 



