Jimsonweed

Abstract

Jimsonweed, Jamestown weed, datura, stramonium, thornapple, tolguacha. These are some of the more than a score of common English names used for jimsonweed (Datura stramonium L. #3 DATST), a cosmopolitan weed of worldwide distribution. The above names are those used most widely in the United States. Jimsonweed is a corruption of Jamestown weed, the name given the plant in colonial days because it first grew in and around Jamestown, VA (2). It had been brought from England as a medicinal plant. Boiled with hog's grease, jimsonweed made a healing salve for burns from “fire, water, boiling lead, gunpowder, and lightning” (2).