128 



Tilt: IN D LAN A WEED BOOK. 



ovate or hastate pointed leaves, blue wheel-shaped flowers and oval 

 red berries. It is also said to be poisonous aiid should be kept down 

 in the same manlier. Another ''bitter-sweet" (Celastrus scandals 

 L.) is a handsome wild twining vine of the Wahoo Family, which 

 is ornamental and not injurious. 



1)4. Datura stramonium L. Jimson-weed. Thorn Apple. Devil's Apple 

 (A. I. 1.) 

 Stem green, stout, widely branched, 1-5 feet high ; leaves thin, ovate, 

 scallop-toothed, pointed, 3-8 inches long. Flowers large, solitary, erect, 

 short-stalked; corolla white, funnel-form, 3-4 inches long; calyx tubular, 

 i- the length of corolla. Capsule dry, egg-shaped, about 2 inches long, 

 densely prickly, the lower prickles shorter. Seeds black, kidney-form, 

 wrinkled and finely pitted, | inch long. (Fig. 92.) 



A common, very ill-smelling, coarse and homely weed, occurring 

 in rich soil about barnyards, sites of old strawstacks and dwellings, 



manure heaps, etc. June-Sept. An- 

 other species, the purple jimson or 

 purple thorn-apple (D. tatula L.), 

 stem purple, more slender and usually 

 taller, corolla violet or purplish, its 

 tube nearly white, and prickles of cap- 

 sule all long, occurs with it or in 

 similar places and is equally common 

 and stinking. The first named came 

 originally from Asia and the purple 

 species from Central America. The 

 name "jimson-weed" is a corruption 

 of Jamestown weed and was given 

 both because they first appeared in 

 this country about Jamestown, Vir- 

 ginia. Both species are powerfully 

 narcotic and poisonous and equally 

 obnoxious and unsightly weeds which 

 every farmer possessing the instinct 

 of neatness should keep from his premises. Remedies: pulling or 

 cutting before the seed matures: cultivation. 



Children are frequently poisoned by eating the leaves or seeds 

 or sucking the flowers, and cattle are known to have been poisoned 

 by eating the leaves of young plants in hay. The poison causes 

 headache, nausea and great thirst, followed by dilated pupils, loss 

 of sight and, in extreme cases, convulsions and death. 



The dried leaves and seeds of both jimson-weeds are powerful 



Fig. 92. a, flowering spray; b, fruiting capsule 

 (After Chesnut.) 



