Datura metel

''Datura metel'', known as Angel's Trumpet, Devil's trumpet, metel, downy thorn-apple and, along with ''Datura stramonium'', zombie cucumber is a shrub-like perennial herb with large tubular flowers, while typically white, many cultivated forms exist offering yellows and deep purple accents. Native to China, India and South East Asia, it is commonly cultivated as a garden plant in North America and Europe.

Medicinal use

''D. metel'' is one of the used in traditional Chinese medicine, where it is called ''yáng jīn huā'' .
The leaves or juice of it if consumed make the person dumb .
The dry flower, particularly the violet coloured, if rolled and used like cigar, will help to relieve the asthma or wheezing like symptoms.

Toxicity

This plant may be toxic if ingested in any quantity, symptomatically expressed as flushed skin, headaches, hallucinations, and possibly convulsions or even a coma. The principal toxic elements are tropane alkaloids. Accidentally ingesting even a single leaf could lead to severe side effects.

Black daturas

A cultivar of ''Datura metel'' with a polished-looking ebony-black stem exists as a garden plant. Its flowers normally have a double or tripple corolla, each corolla having a deep purple exterior and white or off-white interior. The fruit lacks the infamous thorns. It is quite a large datura and could be mistaken for a young tree. Leaves lack the downy appearance of the type species and are more angular, in some ways reminiscent of D. stramonium. The plant is already reported to have become in Israel . The black cultivar might become a common roadside dweller, like its white-flowered ancestor.