Datura species

[Mohan V. Chunkath]

How do you distinguish between Datura metle and Datura Stramonium? Thanks.

Regards,

Mohan

[Gurcharan Singh]

Mohan ji

In both D. stramonium and D. metel the plants are glabrous, hairy in D. inoxia

The deciding difference between D. metel and D. stramonium is that mature fruit of D. metel is drooping, covered with short blunt tubercles barely exceeding 3 mm; in  D. stramonium mature fruit is erect covered with long spines up to 5 mm long.

In addition the following may help. Plants of D. metel are generally taller less branched and erect often reaching 1.5 m and tend to have purplish stem, in D. stramonium plants are shorter, more branched and spreading, stems not purplish.

The leaves of D. stramonium are generally parted, whereas they are not parted in D. metel

-- 
Dr. Gurcharan Singh
Retired  Associate Professor
SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007
Res: 932 Anand Kunj, Vikas Puri, New Delhi-110018.
Phone: 011-25518297  Mob: 9810359089
http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45/ 

[Tanay Bose]

Hi Mohan Ji.

Yo can also take a look at link below from eFlora of China 

for the identification key of Datura for further references.

http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=109368

Tanay

--

Tanay Bose

Research Assistant & Teaching Assistant.
Department of Botany.
University of British Columbia .
3529-6270 University Blvd.
Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z4 (Canada)
Phone: 778-323-4036 (Mobile)

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ta...@interchange.ubc.ca

Webpages: 

http://www.botany.ubc.ca/people/mberbee.html

http://www.botany.ubc.ca/people/gradstud.html

https://sites.google.com/site/efloraofindia/

[Mohan V. Chunkath]

Dear Dr. Gurcharan Singh and Tanay ji,

Thanks for the very prompt input.

Regards,

Mohan