Datura metel L.

Family: Solanaceae

Synonym: Datura nigra Hassk.,Datura alba F.Muell.

Bengali/Vernacular name: Dhutra, Dhutura.

Tribal name: Row-shan-they (Rakhaing), Dhutura gaith (Tanchangya), Dudurphul (Chakma).

English name: Datura, Thorn-apple.

Description of the plant:  A robust herb or undershrub, up to 2 m tall. Leaves 8-17 cm long and 4-12 cm wide, ovate to angular or broad ovate, entire, sinuate or deeply toothed, acute to acuminate, base oblique.Flowers axillary, solitary, funnel-shaped, creamy-white or purplish, lobes usually 5. Fruits rounded capsules, green, about 3.5 cm in diameter and covered with stout, short spines, dehiscing at the apex when ripe forming an irregular suture. Seeds numerous, closely packed, nearly smooth, and pale brown.

Plant parts used: Leaf, flower, seed, root.

Herbal uses: Dried flowers of the plant are used for as anesthetic and prescribed for the treatment of asthma, cough, and convulsions.

Powdered roots are rubbed to the gums for the treatment of toothache.

Ointment of seeds is used for the treatment of smallpox.

For epilepsy, seeds of ripe fruit are burned and the smoke inhaled.

Paste prepared from the leaves of the plant is applied to the forehead and kept from sunrise to sunset for seven days to treat cluster headache.

A balm made with the juice extracted from the leaves of the plant is applied to the boils twice a day for four days to treat boils.

A paste made with the leaves of the plant is applied to the fractured bone after warming on fire to treat it.

The fume is obtained after burning the dried leaves of the plant thrice a day until the dyspnoea is cured.

A balm made with the leaves of the plant is used for massaging on the affected parts of the body twice a day until the facial paralysis is cured.

Fresh juice extracted from the leaves of the plant is applied to the infected gum during night time until the gingivitis is cured. 

Fomentation is given to the affected parts of the body with the leaves of the plant after heated on fire to treat rheumatism.

Distribution: It is found all over Bangladesh in road sides and other fallow lands.

Is this plant misidentified? If yes, please tell us….