windyhill623
Moon Lily
I found this one while searching through photos from a 2007 road trip to the American Southwest. I was struck by the single white blossom, surrounded by large, dark green leaves and a tangled web of previous years' stems, set against the glowing red rock of Utah's southern region.
This is a Sacred Datura (Datura wrightii), a plant with many monikers: Jimson Weed, Angel's Trumpet, Belladonna and Moon Lily, to name a few. It is a perennial, deciduous herb that loses its leaves in winter and can live for at least three years. The stems can grow to several feet in height and width. Blossoms are very large, often over 15 centimeters (6") long and 7 to 10 centimeters (3 - 4") wide. The trumpet-shaped flowers are a brilliant white, often with a purple tinge in the centre and around the margins. They open in the early evening and close again in the morning, to avoid the heat of day, although on cloudy days they may stay open longer.
"The Sacred Datura, through its night-blooming flowers, evokes a feeling of mystery, and it has long been used as a portal to the spirit world, visions, hallucinations and witchcraft— dangerously so. With all its all of its tissues containing chemical compounds known as 'alkaloids,' the plant is extremely poisonous, with the concentration of toxic levels varying from plant to plant." (www.desertusa.com)
Sacred Datura grows on well-drained, sandy soils in open or disturbed ground and often on roadsides or in washes, from northern Mexico and the adjoining southwestern U. S. states, as far north as southern Utah. We found this one on the Wire Pass Trail, a beautiful, easy, 9-kilometer hike in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness, near Kanab, Utah.
Moon Lily
I found this one while searching through photos from a 2007 road trip to the American Southwest. I was struck by the single white blossom, surrounded by large, dark green leaves and a tangled web of previous years' stems, set against the glowing red rock of Utah's southern region.
This is a Sacred Datura (Datura wrightii), a plant with many monikers: Jimson Weed, Angel's Trumpet, Belladonna and Moon Lily, to name a few. It is a perennial, deciduous herb that loses its leaves in winter and can live for at least three years. The stems can grow to several feet in height and width. Blossoms are very large, often over 15 centimeters (6") long and 7 to 10 centimeters (3 - 4") wide. The trumpet-shaped flowers are a brilliant white, often with a purple tinge in the centre and around the margins. They open in the early evening and close again in the morning, to avoid the heat of day, although on cloudy days they may stay open longer.
"The Sacred Datura, through its night-blooming flowers, evokes a feeling of mystery, and it has long been used as a portal to the spirit world, visions, hallucinations and witchcraft— dangerously so. With all its all of its tissues containing chemical compounds known as 'alkaloids,' the plant is extremely poisonous, with the concentration of toxic levels varying from plant to plant." (www.desertusa.com)
Sacred Datura grows on well-drained, sandy soils in open or disturbed ground and often on roadsides or in washes, from northern Mexico and the adjoining southwestern U. S. states, as far north as southern Utah. We found this one on the Wire Pass Trail, a beautiful, easy, 9-kilometer hike in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness, near Kanab, Utah.