Datura stramonium L.

Global description

Datura stramonium is an annual or biennial herbaceous plant, reaching up to 1.5 meters high. The leaves are cut deeply into acute lobes which end in peaks and have projecting veins on the underside. The flowers are big (up to 10 cm long) and has a tubular corolla, with flaring end (the whole structure look like a trumpet), with whitish petals. The fruit is a spiny erect capsule that contains numerous kidney-shaped black seeds.
 
Cotyledons

The cotyledons are linear, lanceolate, 5 to 30 mm long and 4 to 5 mm wide help on a petiole, 5 to 8 mm long. The lamina is green on the upper surface and tinted with purple on the lower surface.
 
First leaves

First leaves are simple, alternate, borne on a stalk of 12 to 18 mm long. The lamina is oval, lanceolate of 25 to 36 mm long and 8 to 12 mm wide, with sharp ridges, green on the upper surface and slightly tinted with purple on the lower surface.
 
General habit

D. stramonium is an erect, herbaceous plant slightly lignified, 1.5m high.
 
Underground system

The taproot has numerous white secondary roots.
 
Stem

The stem is cylindrical, solid, thick and more or less woody at the base, quickly and regularly dichotomously divided. It is yellowish green or tinged with purple, it is glabrous or slightly pubescent with simple hairs on young twigs and peduncle.
 
Leaf

The large leaves are simple, alternate, oval to elliptical, usually lobed, with irregular tine, shiny dark green on the upper surface, lighter and marked with projecting veins beneath. They are borne by a long robust petiole (3-11 cm long). The lamina is widely oval to lanceolate, almost entire, with strong and irregular serrated margin or 3 to 5 lobed, with irregular and relatively deep sinuses. The base is rounded or cuneate, the apex is acute to acuminate. The venation is alternate. Both sides are glabrous, 3 to 11 cm long. Both leaf surfaces are smooth and glabrous.
 
Inflorescence

The solitary flowers are axillary.

Flower

Flowers are funnel-shaped (narrow tube, 3 to 4.5 cm long), folded at their base, 5 to 12 cm long with open flared corolla in trumpet-shaped, consisting of five fused petals that end in peak. They are white, yellow or purple in color, solitary in the axils of upper leaves, sometimes at the ramifications. Calyx is tubular, serrated, welded to 5 pale green lobes, with twisted aestivation. They are held by a short peduncle of 0.5 to 1 cm.
 
Fruit

The fruit is an erect sub-globose capsule, of 3 to 6 cm long and 2 to 4 cm wide. It is thorny, covered with conical upright spines 6 to 10 mm long, divided into four zones separated by the suture and the line of dehiscence. The fruit is dehiscent at the top, opening into 4 valves. The base of the calyx is persistent and form a green folded collar, about 1 cm long, at the base of the fruit. A capsule containing numerous seeds
 
Seed

The kidney-shaped seed is flat and wrinkled, 3 to 4 mm long and blackish. 

Origin

Native to North America.

Worldwide distribution
 
Europe, North  and South America, Asia, Africa (East and South), Indian Ocean, Oceania.

Algeria : Datura stramonium is a common species throughout the country until the Sahara

https://www.gbif.org/species/2928751