Common thorn apple

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Common thorn apple
Common thorn apple (Datura stramonium)

Common thorn apple ( Datura stramonium )

Systematics
Asterids
Euasterids I
Order : Nightshade (Solanales)
Family : Nightshade family (Solanaceae)
Genre : Thorn Apples ( Datura )
Type : Common thorn apple
Scientific name
Datura stramonium
L.
Common thorn apple, Datura stramonium in different phases

The common thorn apple or white thorn apple ( Datura stramonium ) is the most common representative of the genus of thorn apples in Central Europe .

description

The common thorn apple is an upright to bushy annual plant . The plants reach a height of 0.2 to 1.2 m, rarely up to 2 m. The plant is green or has a more or less purple tinge. The stems appear to be forked and bare. The leaves are ovate, irregularly lobed to a pointy to double-toothed or bulged, soft and about the size of a hand, dark green on the surface and gray-green on the underside; their smell is reminiscent of cooked chickpeas. Especially the young parts of the plant are covered with trichomes .

The common thorn apple forms flowers with unidirectional twisted buds of the five corolla lobes from June to October . The then fragrant flowers only open towards night; they are mainly visited and pollinated by moths. The common thorn apple is also successful with self-pollination in terms of fruit and seed formation. Thorn apple blossoms smell strongly sweetish (at night), perfumed; the smell of the plant, which many find unpleasant, comes from stems and leaves. The trumpet or funnel-shaped corolla is five-lobed; it has no secondary corolla lobes, as occurs in other species of the genus, and reaches a length of 6 to 8.5 cm. There are white to yellowish-white as well as violet blooming representatives.

Four-part, spiky capsules emerge from the flowers, which stand straight up in the stem armpits or at the ends and, as winter animals, only gradually spread their many seeds until spring. Seed-containing fruit capsules are egg-shaped and up to 4.5 cm long and up to 3.5 cm in diameter. The spines on the fruits are almost evenly distributed. The base of the calyx remaining on the fruit widens during the ripening phase. With the onset of ripeness, the capsule opens only gradually from above and releases the usually 300 (in individual cases only 100) to 500 (sometimes up to 800) black, kidney-shaped seeds. The thousand grain mass is 7 to 11 g. The seeds are spread through animal litter . or through human activity. The seeds retain their ability to germinate for many years.

The number of chromosomes is 2n = 24.

ingredients

The common thorn apple contains the poisonous tropane alkaloids (S) - hyoscyamine and scopolamine . All parts of the plant are poisonous, especially the roots and seeds. Quantities of 0.3 g or more can cause toxic effects such as B. cause increased arousal, hallucinations , nausea, dilated pupils with visual disturbances and respiratory paralysis . Evidence of intoxication can be made using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry . The alkaloids hyoscyamine / atropine and scopolamine are usually detected as trimethylsilyl derivatives.

Use, economic importance

Thorn apple leaves ( Stramonii folium ) are no longer used in medicine. Because of insufficiently proven effectiveness and high toxicity, Commission E at the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices in Germany gave this pharmaceutical drug a negative rating.

The thorn apple has been described as a narcotic drug, such as smoking dried leaves, drinking tea infusions, chewing stramonium root.

The species occasionally occurs as a weed in garden crops, but is usually of rather minor economic importance there. For some time, however, it has appeared in North America as a problem weed in nightshade crops such as tomatoes. Another problem is that as an alternative host for a number of harmful insects, it represents a reservoir for these organisms from which cultures can be infested again at any time.

Distribution, origin

The genus Datura includes about 10 to 13 species, depending on the view, with the main distribution in Mexico and the southern USA. Datura stramonium is, according to a phylogenomic analysis, a sister species of a common clade from the species Datura ferox and Datura quercifolia , it forms, with four other species, the section Datura s. st. within the genus. The species group is supported by a morphological feature, the upright, not hanging, ripe seed pods.

While the American origin of the genus and the species can be considered proven, there has been a long-running scientific controversy as to whether the species, or another member of the genus, might have reached the Old World before Columbus' (pre-Columbian) voyages could be. The reason for this are uses as intoxicants and medicinal plants, especially in India, which may point to ancient traditions, as well as mentions in various ancient Greek, Arabic and Indian texts. Dioscorides calls a plant "dorycnion", which could fit the thorn apple in its description. In various Arabic sources a plant "gawz mathil" is described (including by the Persian doctor and author Ibn Sina ), the description of which fits the thorn apple very well. Hildegard von Bingen calls a herb "Stramonia", which is related to the thorn apple. According to the most common hypothesis, this information is based on confusion with other species. Accordingly, Leonhart Fuchs is responsible for the transfer of the name , who in his De historia stirpium commentarii insignes published in 1542 depicted the thorn apple newly introduced from America and equated it with Hildegard's Stramonia in the description; this name was passed on via Joseph Pitton de Tournefort to Carl von Linné , who used it as a species name.

The common thorn apple is now a cosmopolitan. In Europe the plant is a neophyte . Datura stramonium was archaeobotanically proven for the period from 1580 to 1620 on German territory . In Central Europe , the warmth-loving common thorn apple often occurs on ruderal areas that are directly illuminated by the sun, which means that they are free from other shading vegetation. It prefers nitrogen-rich soils such as rubble and rubbish spots and roadsides. It is a character species of the class Chenopodietea and occurs in Central Europe especially in short-lived ruderal societies of the order Sisymbrietalia. The flowers open mainly at night and are partially pollinated by moths, but self-pollination predominates.

Systematics

The species Datura stramonium is divided into four varieties . Differentiating features are, on the one hand, the purple coloring of the plant due to anthocyanin , and on the other hand, the presence of spines on the fruits. In part, these varieties are divided into different forms:

  • Datura stramonium var. Stramonium Gaertn. : Green, non-colored shoots, white flowers, prickly capsules, sometimes also prickly and unprinced capsules on a plant
    • Datura stramonium var. Stramonium f. stramonium Gaertn. : All capsules bribed
    • Datura stramonium var. Stramonium f. labilis hammer : capsules that are partly unborn
  • Datura stramonium var. Inermis (Jacq.) Lundstr. : Green, uncolored shoots, white flowers, unprinced capsules
  • Datura stramonium var. Tatula (L.) Torr. : Purple-colored shoots, purple flowers, prickly capsules
    • Datura stramonium var. Tatula f. tatula Danert : Barely purple colored rungs
    • Datura stramonium var. Tatula f. bernhardii (Lundstr.) Danert : Very pronounced violet color, leaf base and calyx brown-violet, relatively small, red-violet flowers
  • Datura stramonium var. Godronii Danert : purple-colored shoots, purple flowers, unprorned capsules

The genetic differences between the varieties and forms are small, differences in the color of the flowers and in the thorns of the fruits can be traced back to a single gene. Sometimes different colored flowers or differently spiked capsules even appear on the same plant. The species forms hybrids with the closely related Datura ferox in the field.

More pictures

  • D. stramonium with flower

  • Several plants

  • At a typical location in the gravel of the Himmelgeister Rheinbogen, Düsseldorf

  • Blossom at the beginning of its development from contorter bud cover

  • Seed pod at an early stage of development

  • D. stramonium still immature seed pods, e.g. T. halved lengthways

  • opening capsule with ripe seeds

Common names

For the common thorn apple, the other German-language trivial names exist or existed : Botschekrämen ( Transylvania ), Dollkraut ( Silesia ), Donnerkugeln ( Tyrol ), thorn apple, thorn head, Düwelsappel ( Mecklenburg ), flyweed seeds, full mint, hedgehog head, hedgehog cob, kekebenziker ( Transylvania in the Rauthal ), cumin ( Küstrin ), toad melde, Krützkämel ( Pomerania ) , Papeln ( Transylvania), Paputschen (Transylvania), horse poison, pinch apple, smoked apple herb, black cumin (for the seeds; Henneberg), Schwenizkreokt near Jakappeldorf.) (Mecklenburg, Lower Weser ), prickle nut, thorn apple, stechöpffels, Stekappel, Tatschekrokt (Transylvania near Johannisdorf ), Tobkraut (Silesia near Lauban ), madcap and madam.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Andreas Alberts, Peter Mullen: Psychoactive plants, fungi and animals: purpose, effect, use . Franckh-Kosmos, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-440-12677-6 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  2. ^ A b Karl Hammer, Anneliese Romeike, Claus Tittel: Preliminary work on the monographic representation of wild plant assortments: Datura L., sections Dutra Bernh., Ceratocaulis Bernh. et Datura. In: Cultivated Plant. Issue 31, 1989, pp. 13-75. doi: 10.1007 / BF02000698
  3. ↑ a b Erich Oberdorfer : Plant-sociological excursion flora for Germany and neighboring areas . With the collaboration of Angelika Schwabe and Theo Müller. 8th, heavily revised and expanded edition. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart (Hohenheim) 2001, ISBN 3-8001-3131-5 , pp. 823 .
  4. ↑ K. Matsuda, M. Morinaga, M. Okamoto, S. Miyazaki, T. Isimaru, K. Suzuki, K. Tohyama: Toxicological analysis of a case of Datura stramonium poisoning. In: Rinsho Byori. 54 (10), Oct 2006, pp. 1003-1007. Japanese. PMID 17133988
  5. ↑ T. Dingermann, K. Hiller, G. Schneider, I. Zündorf: Schneider drug drugs. 5th edition. Elsevier, 2004, ISBN 3-8274-1481-4 , pp. 449 f.
  6. ^ A b Susan E. Weaver & Suzanne I. Warwick (1984): The Biology of Canadian weeds. 64: Daturs stramonium L. Canadian Journal of Plant Science 64: 979-991.
  7. ^ Robert Bye & Victoria Sosa (2013): Molecular Phylogeny of the Jimsonweed Genus Datura (Solanaceae). Systematic Botany, 38 (3): 818-829. doi: 10.1600 / 036364413X670278
  8. ^ John Scarborough (2012): Thornapple in Graeco-Roman Pharmacology. Classical Philology 107 (3): 247-255. JSTOR 665636
  9. ^ R Geeta, Waleed Gharaibeh (2007): Historical evidence for a pre-Columbian presence of Datura in the Old World and implications for a first millennium transfer from the New World. Journal of Bioscience 32: 1227-1244.
  10. ^ DE Symon & LAR Haegi (1991): Datura (Solanaceae) is a New World genus. In: John Gregory Hawkes (editors): Solanaceae III: Taxonomy, chemistry, evolution. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (for the Linnean Society of London): 197-210.
  11. ↑ Ioannis T. Tsialtas, Efstathia Patelou, Nikolaos S Kaloumenos, Photini V Mylona, ​​Alexios Polidoros, Georgios Menexes, Ilias G Eleftherohorinos (2014): In the wild hybridization of annual Datura species as unveiled by morphological and molecular comparisons. Journal of Biological Research-Thessaloniki 2014 21:11. doi: 10.1186 / 2241-5793-21-11 (open access)
  12. ^ Georg August Pritzel , Carl Jessen : The German folk names of plants. New contribution to the German linguistic treasure. Philipp Cohen, Hanover 1882, p. 130 f. (on-line)

Web links

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