Plants → Solanaceae → Datura → Browse taxa…
Datura L.
Species plantarum 2:179 (1753)
Name Status: Current
Scientific Description
J. Gathe and Leslie Watson,
Friday 3 October 2008
Common name. Thornapples. Family Solanaceae.
Habit and leaf form. Shrubs, or herbs; resinous, or not resinous. Plants unarmed (apart from the fruit). Annual, or perennial; plants with neither basal nor terminal concentrations of leaves. Stem internodes solid. Helophytic to xerophytic. Leaves alternate; spiral; ‘herbaceous’, or leathery; petiolate; non-sheathing; not gland-dotted; without marked odour, or foetid; simple; epulvinate. Leaf blades dissected, or entire; pinnatifid; pinnately veined; cross-venulate. Leaves without stipules. Leaf blade margins entire (and sinuate). Leaves without a persistent basal meristem. Leaf anatomy. Hairs present, or absent; glandular hairs absent, or present. Branched hairs absent. Extra-floral nectaries absent.
Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite. Unisexual flowers absent. Plants hermaphrodite. Entomophilous.
Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers solitary; terminal (or in the forks of stems or lateral — i.e. leaf-opposed or displaced); pedicellate; ebracteate; ebracteolate; medium-sized to large; regular; 5 merous; cyclic; tetracyclic. Free hypanthium absent. Hypogynous disk present; intrastaminal. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx present; (3–)5(–9); 1 -whorled; gamosepalous; shortly blunt-lobed; tubular, or urceolate; regular; persistent; non-accrescent. Corolla present; 5; 1 -whorled; gamopetalous. Corolla lobes markedly shorter than the tube. Corolla contorted and plicate; funnel-shaped; regular; green (tube), or white (throat translucent white or coloured). Androecial members definite in number. Androecium 5. Androecial members adnate; all equal; free of one another; 1 -whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 5 (usually). Staminal insertion near the base of the corolla tube, or midway down the corolla tube. Stamens all inserted at the same level; remaining included (or only slightly exserted); all more or less similar in shape; isomerous with the perianth; oppositisepalous (in lower half of the corolla tube). Filaments appendiculate, or not appendiculate; filiform. Anthers connivent, or separate from one another; basifixed; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse; bilocular; tetrasporangiate. Pollen shed in aggregates, or shed as single grains. Gynoecium 2 carpelled. The pistil 2 celled, or 4 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synstylovarious to eu-syncarpous; superior. Ovary plurilocular; 2 locular (above), or 4 locular (below, by equal secondary divisions from the placentae). Locules secondarily divided by ‘false septa’. Gynoecium oblique. Ovary sessile. Gynoecium stylate. Styles 1; attenuate from the ovary; apical. Stigmas 1; 2 - lobed (L). Placentation axile. Ovules 20–50 per locule (numerous); non-arillate; anatropous, or hemianatropous.
Fruit and seed features. Fruit non-fleshy; spinose (or tuberculate); dehiscent; a capsule. Capsules valvular, or splitting irregularly (regularly by 4 valves or irregularly from the apex). Fruit 2–4 celled; 20–100 seeded (usually numerous, several). Seeds endospermic. Endosperm oily, or not oily. Cotyledons 2. Embryo curved (through more than a semicircle).
Etymology. From the Hindi Dhatura; name of D. fastuosa.
Taxonomic Literature
Wheeler, J.R. Marchant, N. G. Lewington, Margaret Graham, Lorraine Western Australian Herbarium (2002). Flora of the south west : Bunbury - Augusta - Denmark. Volume 2 : Dicotyledons. ABRS and W.A. Herbarium in association with UWA Press. Canberra.
Wheeler, J.R. Rye, Barbara L. Koch, B.L. Wilson, A.J.G. Western Australian Herbarium (1992). Flora of the Kimberley region. Western Australian Herbarium. Como, W.A.
Marchant, N. G. (1987). Flora of the Perth region. Part 1. Western Australian Herbarium. [South Perth].
Australia. Bureau of Flora and Fauna (1982). Flora of Australia. Volume 29. Solanaceae. Australian Govt. Pub. Service. Canberra.
Blackall, William E. Grieve, Brian J. (1982). How to know Western Australian wildflowers : a key to the flora of the extratropical regions of Western Australia. Part 4. University of Western Australia Press. Nedlands, W.A.
