Angel's Trumpet

Angel's Trumpet (Brugmansia spp.)

The Angel's Trumpet (Brugmansia) is the latest addition to the garden behind the little blue house in the village, and although I pondered the wisdom of adding a poisonous South American botanical specimen to the garden this year, it has been a great pleasure to look at it and breathe in its fragrance.

This more decorative cousin of the Jimson Weed (Datura) is a member of the Solanaceae or Nightshade family, and it is sometimes consumed for its hallucinogenic properties, but doing so is most certainly not advised. The plant contains an abundance of the tropane alkaloids scopolamine and atropine, but their potency varies from plant to plant, and one cannot predict the degree of intoxication which will result from ingesting the Angel's Trumpet - imbibing an elixir brewed from it can be fatal.

I was interested to learn that ritualized consumption of this botanical has been part of shamanic practices among indigenous South American cultures for many centuries. The Jivaroan tribe of the Amazon rainforest brew a hallucinogenic potion called ayahuasca from it, and Brugmansia is also central to the shamanic practices and cosmology of the Urarina tribe of Peru.

One may reasonably expect a walk between the worlds when one partakes of the elixir of the Angel's Trumpet, but a return from one's voyage may not be in the cards.