Datura stramonium
Poisonous plant
Environmental Weed (2024)
Common names
thornapple
Biostatus
Exotic
Category
Vascular
Structural class
Herbs - Dicotyledons other than Composites
Flower colours
Violet/Purple, White
Similar taxa
White trumpet flowers (Landcare Research 1999).
Conservation status
Not applicable
Detailed taxonomy
Family
Solanaceae
Ecology
Year naturalised
1867
Origin
Tropical and Subtropical America
Other information
Poisonous plant
The black seed and other parts of the plant contain a powerful and toxic drug.
Etymology
datura: From the vernacular East Indian
stramonium: Old botanic Latin for ‘thorn apple’
Environmental Weed (2024)
This plant is named in a list of 386 environmental weeds in New Zealand 2024 prepared by DOC. 759 candidate species were considered for inclusion on this new comprehensive list of environmental weeds in New Zealand. The species considered were drawn from published lists of weed species, lists of plants that must be reported or managed by law if observed, existing national and regional programmes and agreements for pest management, and species already managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC). Candidate species were then assessed to see if they were fully naturalised and whether they have more than minor impacts in natural ecosystems. Read the full report here.
NVS code
The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.
DATSTR