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name; jimson weed which is derived from Jamestown weed.
What I have wanted to know for years is the answer to this question: Is Jimson weed native or introduced? If it was growing at Jamestown it was certainly brought to the New World very early indeed.
In searching for the answer to my question, I have gone to book after book. They disagree and contradict each other. I found three answers: jimson weed is native and indigenous to North America. Another source stated it to be an ‘adventive’ from the American tropics. The third, and I suspect the correct one, is that it is a native of Asia.
Datura stramonium is the scientific name of this strange and dangerous plant. There, I think is a clue. Datura is a corruption of the Arabic word, Tatorah. Tb me, that suggests the plant came from the Old World.
Still, I don’t know the truth of the origin of Jimson weed. In the botanist’s bible, “Gray's Manual of Botany, Eighth Edition,” I read that the plant is introduced and, further, in French speaking Canada where the plant also grows, it is called Herbe aux sorciers. That should tell us to leave it alone if nothing else.
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