Plant Name
Scientific Name: Datura discolor
Common Name: Desert Thorn-apple
Plant Characteristics
Duration: Annual
Growth Habit: Herb/Forb
Arizona Native Status: Native
Habitat: Desert. It grows in desert washes, along roadsides, in drainage ditches, and in other disturbed areas with loose soil.
Flower Color: White
Flowering Season: Summer
Height: To 2 feet (61 cm) tall, but usually less
Description: The showy flowers are nocturnal and open around sundown. The flowers are tubular, up to 6 1/3 inches (16 cm) long, held erect (not drooping), and have a glabrous corolla with short lobe tips and a distinctive purple-streaked throat. The flowers are followed by spiny, drooping, minutely hairy, rounded fruits that contain black seeds. The fruit is initially green, but it dries to a brown color. The leaves are green, alternate, broadly oval-shaped, and coarsely toothed.
No other Datura species found here has purple streaks in the floral tube.
Special Characteristics
Allergenic – Skin contact with the sap may cause contact dermatitis in susceptible persons.
Poisonous – The plants are poisonous and contain toxic tropane alkaloids.
Classification
Kingdom: Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom: Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision: Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division: Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class: Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass: Asteridae
Order: Solanales
Family: Solanaceae – Potato family
Genus: Datura L. – jimsonweed
Species: Datura discolor Bernh. – desert thorn-apple
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