洋金花 yang jin hua

Datura alba Nees; D. fastuosa Linnaeus; D. fastuosa var. alba (Nees) C. B. Clarke.

Herbs annual, 0.5-1.5 m tall, glabrescent. Stems often dark violet. Petiole 2-6 cm; leaf blade ovate or broadly ovate, 5-20 × 4-l5 cm, membranous, glabrescent, base truncate or cuneate, asymmetrical, margin irregularly sinuate-dentate, lobed, or entire, apex acuminate; veins 4-6 pairs. Flowers erect. Pedicel ca. 1 cm. Calyx tubular, 4-9 cm. Corolla white, yellowish, or pale purple, funnelform, sometimes doubled or tripled, 14-20 cm; limb 6-10 cm in diam.; lobes elongate. Anthers 1-1.2 cm. Capsules deflexed, subglobose, ca. 3 cm in diam., tuberculate, irregularly 4-valved, subtended by remnants of persistent calyx. Seeds pale brown, reniform-discoid, ca. 3 mm in diam. Fl. and fr. Mar-Dec.

Grassy and sunny slopes, near houses, also commonly cultivated in many cities; 1200-2100 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Taiwan, Yunnan [native of the Americas, long introduced and naturalized in Asia]

Whole plant, especially seeds, toxic. The flowers are used as an anaesthetic.