Well, I see it used now and then (mainly by businesses that seem likely to be owned by Mexican-Americans)...and find it striking. However, most appeal is in the evening through very early morning, since it's a night bloomer.

Yea Barron, I knew its a night bloomer. Thats interesting about where you see them, it just figures that the Hispanic community would have them up there in Arkansas. Here in Capitol Hill where there is a large Hispanic Community you see all the really good native Texas stuff growing, those guys have the best gardens because they are not boring and they hold up in summer. I've gone seed 'collecting' over there more than once. I am 99.9% decided I really need one on the Hell Strip. I figure the seeds will end up in the street, a lot of them will anyway. My neighbors may end up growing it against their will.

I found that the seed pods will break and fall under the plant. I don't remember much drift of the plants. I would dead head the seeds before they dropped. In the spring there would be a lot of volunteers but they were easy to control. I kept it to one plant easily.. I have seen D wrightii blooming in Utah. They were fairly small compared to Texas plants. I think they grow as a annual up there because the winters are too cold. I kept one alive for about 5 years and then there was that drought. I will keep my eye out for a pod. It made a low wide mound of a plant.

I liked the smell. It was unusual.

I'm backing off of it. I saw one up the street and remembered another thing I didn't like about it. The flowers look terrible the next day hanging on the plant like limp dingy rags and this one had about 25 blooms drooping all over it, quite ugly. It was upright rather than low growing like yours in the photo. I think when its grown in any kind of reasonably good soil it grows upright and bushy with a main stem, yours looks good probably because its in caliche or thin lime soil, I saw several on google that looked the same growing in a dry habitat. Those I like very much.

I'm sure now the ones I grew way back when were D. wrightii. Its interesting you like the smell, are you talking about the plant or the flowers? I didn't like either. The flowers were too strong and sickly sweet. Remember that thread where we were talking about smells and how some people like certain smells that others hate? Most people on Daves' G. said they liked the smell of the flowers. I found it even worse & more sickeningly sweet than privet and thats saying a lot. Lots of people hate the smell of Lantana but thats one I really like.

I like the small of the leaves when you brush up against them. I also like the flowers. they drop the flowers quickly. They were in an improved area, but little watering. Flower smell is not for long. By the end of the middle of the night the smell has diminished. I am not trying to talk you into it. I have seen them get taller. I think there are different breeds of them also. Some more violet, some taller , pods differ too from population to population..

I've grown datura, it is pretty, and I do like the smell. You do realize all parts of the plant are poisonous. Take care to wash up after handling.

You read my mind, I've started thinking there are different strains and I keep googling them to try to figure it out. For instance the leaves on yours look smaller. I swear, it looks like a completely different plant. Maybe these less attractive ones up here are local Okies???

elvis, the poison aspect is part of the charm.....just kidding..... we don't plan to go on a Jimsonweed trip or use it in salad. My neighbor got real excited back when years ago when I told him I was growing 'loco-weed'. He found it fascinating for some reason but he's an uptight republican. Its not the only plant named loco-weed but some call it that.

I corrected it above. I meant "smEll of the leaves", not "smAll of the leaves"

I saw a lovely one this morning...about 9 am (hadn't drooped yet). Really TR, they're good the times most people are in their gardens this time of year (late evening and early morning)

Agree, Barron. It only take a couple of minutes to do some deadheading if you don't like the looks of droopy spent blooms (I do a lot of that).

Texas, maybe your neighbor was dropping hints :D. You could have helped him with that "uptightness". Seriously, though, I recently came across a news article about a Canadian couple who inadvertently ate datura seeds (thought it was seasoning, unlabeled), and spent 3 days in hospital. They got pretty sick, apparently.

"Locoweed" is what my Oregon friend calls tansy, and my mother calls larkspur "locoweed". When I think "locoweed" I think pot!

My understanding is real Locoweed is Oxytropis which cattle and horses develop a taste for and will go 'loco' or crazy along with other negative symptoms if they eat enough of it, the condition is irreversible. Datura is poisonous and kills them but I don't think it makes them crazy or that they get a taste for it like they do with Oxytropis.

I suppose the high people get from Datura, unless it kills them is why its called locoweed. I purchased seeds once from PoSW of Lambert's Locoweed but the only plant I ended up with got too much water and died that summer, things getting too much water in summer is not very common here so I must have really been over zealous with the hose that year.

I've heard that larkspur is poisonous so maybe thats why your mother calls it locoweed.

Barron, how tall was the plant? I'm attracted to that low vertical growing one wantanamara posted but not the ones that are more shrublike that I see around here. I've got a friend and he has a yard full of datura seedlings at different stages of development along with mature plants every year and red amaranth that comes up everywhere, even in the street cracks several feet from his yard thanks to a friend who did some gardening at his place several years back who planted the original plants. The guy is not what you'd call a regular weeder or gardener so there's always plants left to go to seed each year and the two plants have nicely naturalized to put it mildly. Its kind of a WARNING sign of sorts if you get my drift.

I'm not a daily deadheader. I don't mind cutting something back once a season but daily deadheading is not an appealing idea. That means my plant would be left to develop thorny scrotums (woops, I mean large seed pods)

I'll try to drive by it again today. I think two foot or less.

My cows staid clear of it. It was one of the only things they did not eat. I must be attracted to thorny scrot.....s. Actually some pods are less thorny than others. I never deadheaded them every day. The work needed is much less than that. The flowers come in waves so the seed pods came in waves and one had a while to deadhead them before the cracked and dropped their seed. I did not find that they were a lot of work. I think I got out there to strip the plants about 3 times in the long summer and then once in the spring to weed the ones that I missed. Easy weeding. It is sacred to some tribes of Indians and others thought of them as a white mans plant because they grew around the trash pit. I don't know where I picked up that last tid bit of shcizz. It could be nothing more than hearsay.

To me, locoweed is either a hot-pink or white legume. Never heard anything else called locoweed.

I have some kind of datura that just spouted up a couple years ago, and I never bothered to pull it out (actually, I think I thought it was a tomato seedling from the compost...well, they're both nightshades). It dropped seeds, none came up last year and this year several sprouted but only two ended up growing. I like it, I think it's wrightii, and it never get's very big for me. Although, there a spot I drive by on my way home from work, on the backside of what we call the "hogback" (the first formation on the very eastern edge of the Rockies) where it is growing wild and it is pretty big. Wrightii is native to the Western Slope according to USDA, but not this side of the divide, so it was probably an accident, like mine.

I saw it in the Needles section of the Canyonlands by the campsites.