Poisonous Plants: Jimsonweed Datura stramonium
Jimsonweed the plant
Jimsonweed is a plant easily recognizable by its dark green leaves, large, white trumpet flowers and prickly fruit. It is most notoriously known, however, for its intoxicating effects when consumed (which Jimsonweed the band does not endorse) and for its sometimes fatal results.1
Today's common name for the plant, Jimsonweed, is short for "Jamestown's weed," a name given the plant way back in 1676. British soldiers were sent to stop the Rebellion of Bacon in Jamestown, Virginia. Somewhere along the way they boiled the weed and put in a salad, which they then ate.2 Robert Beverly described it in his text, The History and Present State of Virginia (1705):
[The soldiers presented] "a very pleasant comedy, for they turned natural fools upon it for several days: one would blow up a feather in the air; another would dart straws at it with much fury; and another, stark naked, was sitting up in a corner like a monkey, grinning and making mows at them; a fourth would fondly kiss and paw his companions, and sneer in their faces with a countenance more antic than any in a Dutch droll.
"In this frantic condition, they were confined, lest they should, in their folly, destroy themselves - though it was observed that all their actions were full of innocence and good nature. Indeed they were not very cleanly; for they would have wallowed in their own excrements if they had not been prevented. A thousand such simple tricks they played, and after 11 days returned themselves again, not remembering anything that had passed."3
All parts of jimsonweed are poisonous. It was nicknamed 'the herb of prisoners.' These facts have been well known for centuries. In the Middle Ages, it was very popular among professional murderers who used to add parts of the plant with the victim's food or wine resulting in an immediate poisoning effect, which they expected to eventually be followed by death.4 According to Thomas Jefferson's journal:
"The late Dr. Bond (co-founder with Benjamin Franklin of the Pennsylvania Hospital) informed me that he had under his care a patient, a young girl, who had put the seeds of this plant into her eye, which dilated the pupil to such a degree, that she could see in the dark, but in the light was almost blind. The effect that the leaves had when eaten by a ship's crew that arrived at Jamestown is well known."5
The seeds and other parts of the plants were steeped in wine or liquor and used as a truth serum by the priests of the Celtic Empire in Gaul. It was widely used in shamanic rites, in parts of Scandinavia the leaves were smoked to help relieve the symptoms of asthma and also as a decongestant. The German states used the leaves to help heal wounds. In India, Datura (Latin title for jimsonweed is Datura Stramonium) was known as "the tuft of Shiva," the deity/god of destruction. In India, a famous drink was made of wild Datura, also steeped in wine, and was said to be the most intoxicating of its time. In Indochina, Datura was mixed with Cannabis and smoked.
Georgia O'Keeffe painted several paintings of jimsonweed. It was one of her favorite flowers, and among the first flowers to appear in the artist's large-scale flower paintings. In 1936 beauty salon queen Elizabeth Arden commissioned an O'Keeffe painting of jimsonweed blossoms to hang in a "gymnasium moderne" in Manhattan. (More paintings of jimsonweed by O'Keeffe: 2 3 4 )
Jimsonweed also has its place in American Country music. It shows up in the song "Back in the Saddle Again," written by Gene Autry and Ray Whitley in 1939 and first appeared in the movie Rovin Tumbleweed (1939).
I'm back in the saddle again
Out where a friend is a friend
Where the longhorn cattle feed
On the lowly jimsonweed
Back in the saddle again
Most farmers have to uproot the weed, as it will make livestock sick or crazy if they eat it. It is a very hardy plant, one of the most difficult weeds to kill with pesticide.
The plant also has alleged medicinal properties. Before tobacco became their principal crop, the Virginia colonists exported their "Jamestown weed" to England as a relief for the congestion of gonorrhea. In fact, although naturalized in North America, seeds were brought from England and the plant was grown for medicinal purposes. Boiled with hog's grease, jimsonweed made a healing salve for burns from "fire, water, boiling lead, gunpowder, and lightning."6 Jimsonweed is still used, mainly as an ointment, plasters or fomentation; if applied locally Stramonium can relieve the pain of muscular rheumatism, neuralgia, and also pain due to hemorrhoids, fistula, abscesses and similar inflammation. It is also used on rashes such as mosquito bites and poison ivy. Most sources confirm that external use of jimsonweed is safe, that ingestion of the plant causes brain damage and death.7
From "Calvin Campbell" by Edgar Lee Masters:
Ye who are kicking against Fate,
Tell me how it is that on this hill-side,
Running down to the river,
Which fronts the sun and the south-wind,
This plant draws from the air and soil
Poison and becomes poison ivy?
And this plant draws from the same air and soil
Sweet elixirs and colors and becomes arbutus?
And both flourish?
You may blame Spoon River for what it is,
But whom do you blame for the will in you
That feeds itself and makes you dock-weed,
Jimson, dandelion or mullen
And which can never use any soil or air
So as to make you jessamine or wistaria?8
Jimsonweed is a plant easily recognizable by its dark green leaves, large, white trumpet flowers and prickly fruit. It is most notoriously known, however, for its intoxicating effects when consumed (which Jimsonweed the band does not endorse) and for its sometimes fatal results.1
Today's common name for the plant, Jimsonweed, is short for "Jamestown's weed," a name given the plant way back in 1676. British soldiers were sent to stop the Rebellion of Bacon in Jamestown, Virginia. Somewhere along the way they boiled the weed and put in a salad, which they then ate.2 Robert Beverly described it in his text, The History and Present State of Virginia (1705):
[The soldiers presented] "a very pleasant comedy, for they turned natural fools upon it for several days: one would blow up a feather in the air; another would dart straws at it with much fury; and another, stark naked, was sitting up in a corner like a monkey, grinning and making mows at them; a fourth would fondly kiss and paw his companions, and sneer in their faces with a countenance more antic than any in a Dutch droll.
"In this frantic condition, they were confined, lest they should, in their folly, destroy themselves - though it was observed that all their actions were full of innocence and good nature. Indeed they were not very cleanly; for they would have wallowed in their own excrements if they had not been prevented. A thousand such simple tricks they played, and after 11 days returned themselves again, not remembering anything that had passed."3
All parts of jimsonweed are poisonous. It was nicknamed 'the herb of prisoners.' These facts have been well known for centuries. In the Middle Ages, it was very popular among professional murderers who used to add parts of the plant with the victim's food or wine resulting in an immediate poisoning effect, which they expected to eventually be followed by death.4 According to Thomas Jefferson's journal:
"The late Dr. Bond (co-founder with Benjamin Franklin of the Pennsylvania Hospital) informed me that he had under his care a patient, a young girl, who had put the seeds of this plant into her eye, which dilated the pupil to such a degree, that she could see in the dark, but in the light was almost blind. The effect that the leaves had when eaten by a ship's crew that arrived at Jamestown is well known."5
The seeds and other parts of the plants were steeped in wine or liquor and used as a truth serum by the priests of the Celtic Empire in Gaul. It was widely used in shamanic rites, in parts of Scandinavia the leaves were smoked to help relieve the symptoms of asthma and also as a decongestant. The German states used the leaves to help heal wounds. In India, Datura (Latin title for jimsonweed is Datura Stramonium) was known as "the tuft of Shiva," the deity/god of destruction. In India, a famous drink was made of wild Datura, also steeped in wine, and was said to be the most intoxicating of its time. In Indochina, Datura was mixed with Cannabis and smoked.
Georgia O'Keeffe painted several paintings of jimsonweed. It was one of her favorite flowers, and among the first flowers to appear in the artist's large-scale flower paintings. In 1936 beauty salon queen Elizabeth Arden commissioned an O'Keeffe painting of jimsonweed blossoms to hang in a "gymnasium moderne" in Manhattan. (More paintings of jimsonweed by O'Keeffe: 2 3 4 )
Jimsonweed also has its place in American Country music. It shows up in the song "Back in the Saddle Again," written by Gene Autry and Ray Whitley in 1939 and first appeared in the movie Rovin Tumbleweed (1939).
I'm back in the saddle again
Out where a friend is a friend
Where the longhorn cattle feed
On the lowly jimsonweed
Back in the saddle again
Most farmers have to uproot the weed, as it will make livestock sick or crazy if they eat it. It is a very hardy plant, one of the most difficult weeds to kill with pesticide.
The plant also has alleged medicinal properties. Before tobacco became their principal crop, the Virginia colonists exported their "Jamestown weed" to England as a relief for the congestion of gonorrhea. In fact, although naturalized in North America, seeds were brought from England and the plant was grown for medicinal purposes. Boiled with hog's grease, jimsonweed made a healing salve for burns from "fire, water, boiling lead, gunpowder, and lightning."6 Jimsonweed is still used, mainly as an ointment, plasters or fomentation; if applied locally Stramonium can relieve the pain of muscular rheumatism, neuralgia, and also pain due to hemorrhoids, fistula, abscesses and similar inflammation. It is also used on rashes such as mosquito bites and poison ivy. Most sources confirm that external use of jimsonweed is safe, that ingestion of the plant causes brain damage and death.7
From "Calvin Campbell" by Edgar Lee Masters:
Ye who are kicking against Fate,
Tell me how it is that on this hill-side,
Running down to the river,
Which fronts the sun and the south-wind,
This plant draws from the air and soil
Poison and becomes poison ivy?
And this plant draws from the same air and soil
Sweet elixirs and colors and becomes arbutus?
And both flourish?
You may blame Spoon River for what it is,
But whom do you blame for the will in you
That feeds itself and makes you dock-weed,
Jimson, dandelion or mullen
And which can never use any soil or air
So as to make you jessamine or wistaria?8
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