A Georgia O'Keefe moment

OK, that's a bit pretentious on my part. But the fact is that my datura has blossomed five times in the past month and I managed to follow the action on one evening. Come watch one of these rather spectacular flowers unfold.

In the beginning, the action takes place over about a week to 10 days, with buds emerging and growing bigger -- here about 5 inches long...

...at which point the sepals begin to open. Call this Day 1.

The next day, Day 2, the blossom is beginning to emerge.

On the third day, the tightly wound flower-to-be is almost ready to open. When you spot it at this stage, the blossom will open the same evening -- starting at dusk, about 7 to 7:15 p.m. In the process, the plant will periodically emit puffs of a lovely fragrance. And, yes, the light is beginning to wane, as you can see in the next pictures.

The pinwheel begins to unwind.

The trumpet is about to begin opening.

Partially open.

The trumpet is beginning to take shape, but the light is fading. Unfortunately, it's difficult to get a good picture with flash working so close to the blossom, though PhotoShop did come to the rescue for the two images below.

Shortly after 7:30 p.m., the datura was about as open as it was going to be. My neighbor held a flashlight for this exposure, and then I quit for the night. Mosquitoes.

Apparently, at least one hawk moth or other night pollinator made an appearance, as the blossom was quite spent the following morning. But notice that if another critter were to show up, there's still an opportunity f0r more seeds to be fertilized. Not one of the five flowers lasted into the next day, a big disappointment...

...which will nevertheless result in a good supply of seeds. Above, a pod beginning to develop.

And, miracle of miracles, I discovered this new seedling yesterday. Perhaps my luck with the deadly datura has changed.

Deadly symmetry

Unless you have suffered with me in my futile attempts to grow my very own jimson weed/sacred datura, you could not know just how pleased I am with this healthy plant growing next the house. One year ago about this time, it was a seedling in a little 4" pot, bought at Flagstaff Native Plant & Seed. I don't know how many times I have planted seeds that I collected from different wild datura growing in the neighborhood. To no avail. Not even a hint of a new plant poking up through the soil. Imagine, then, how let down I was when this particular datura did not put out leaves as soon as the last chill was gone this spring. Oh, no, it waited. And it waited. And it waited, until sometime after the beginning of May, to show its green. Now it's a plant to be proud of. Not only that, but I've discovered an new aspect: examine the plant carefully, particularly the arrangement of the leaves. The dang specimen is bilaterally symmetrical, leaf for leaf, position for position. I first discovered this looking at the new sprouts at the center. Maybe that's why shamans and sorcerers, from Greece and the Orient all the way to the American southwest, used the datura. Not just those powerful alkaloids, but possibly the magical layout of the leaves.

By the way, don't go trying those powerful alkaloids without a shaman or sorcerer to hold your hand and guide you -- they can be nasty, even deadly. It's even a good idea for ordinary people to wash their hands right after handling any part of the plant! But those Georgia O'Keefe blossoms at dusk -- they are worth it!

Statuary: I've met a new (to me) Prescott blogger with a mission; Observations hopes to photograph a sculpture or other outdoor art object every day of the year. That's 365 works in the Prescott area. Wonder if there are that many, with or without counting the chain saw bears.

My Datura Has Grown Up

You may recall that this spring, frustrated by my attempts to grow datura from seed, I bought a seedling up at Flagstaff Native Plant & Seed. Pragmatic, yes. Nonetheless, a defeat -- after all, the plant grows wild in my immediate neighborhood and I've collected plenty of seed over the years. In any event, the seedling has prospered and is now a largish plant. Big enough to produce one blossom this summer and possibly many more in the years ahead.

Here is the large bud, looking like a candlestick.

The blossom has emerged and is thinking of uncoiling.

I waited patiently the evening that the flower was to open; there was only a small amount of movement. I had once before caught a datura blossom as it suddenly sprang open at dusk. A wonderful sight -- and wonderful scent, as well, like many night blooming plants. This particular night, I lost patience, figuring that I could photograph the open flower the next morning.

Hah! No such luck -- in the morning, the blossom was spent!

I had to make do with another plant just up the street from me -- a plant that has grown wild by the roadside for several years, with neither watering nor other TLC.

Developing seed pods on the nearby plant; my own datura has one healthy seed pod. Easy to see why the name thorn apple. Other names for the plant include jimson weed, gypsum weed, loco weed, jamestown weed, angel's trumpet, devil's trumpet, devil's snare, according to Wikipedia. It is found in almost every state and belongs to the solanaceae family, which includes everything from belladonna to tomatoes, potatoes, chilis, tobacco and deadly nightshade.

BTW, I found this reproduction from Georgia O'Keefe among my pictures. Not only beautiful, the datura is seductively dangerous. "Most parts of the plant contain atropine, scopolamine, and hyoscyamine. It has a long history of [medicinal and magical] use both in S. America and Europe and is known for causing delerious states and poisonings in uninformed users," notes the Erowid Organization, whose pages are concerned with hallucinogenic plants. There is, of course, also an association of fanciers and breeders, the American Brugmansia & Datura Society. For the record, brugmansia is the name given to tree daturas, native to South America.