Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
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Datura stramonium
Common thornapple, Thorn apple
Solanaceae
Stream banks, roadsides, and disturbed sites. Western Slopes, tableands, ACT, and Sydney area. Sporadic elsewhere.
Introduced annual herb to 1.5 m tall. Seed cases with many sharp spines. Plant smells unpleasant. Stems hairless or sparsely hairy. Leaves alternating up the stems, 6-36 cm long, 40-200 mm wide, hairless or sparsely hairy, margins coarsely and irregularly toothed or lobed, sometimes wavy, tips pointed. Flowers white or pale mauve, 55-100 mm long, tubular, with five lobes, the lobes ending in a slender point about 10 mm long. Flowers single. Flowers Summer to Autumn. Seed cases oval, 2–4.5 cm long, 1.5–3.5 cm diameter, erect; spines 100–200, slender, variable in length, the longest < 2 cm long. Seeds poisonous.
Noxious weed Vic.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Datura~stramonium (accessed 4 May 2021)
Online fact sheet published by the South Australian Herbarium: http://www.flora.sa.gov.au/efsa/lucid/Solanaceae/Solanaceae%20species/key/Australian%20Solanaceae%20species/Media/Html/Datura_stramonium.htm (accessed 4 May 2021)
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