The Black Datura (Datura metel ‘Fastuosa’) is a poisonous, annual, herbaceous flowering plant in the Solanaceae family. It is also known as the Indian Thornapple, Devil’s Trumpet, Metel, Hindu Datura.
Fastuosa is also known as Black Datura, Blackcurrant Swirl, Double Purple, or Cornucopaea.
It is a short-lived shrub.
It can grow to 200 centimetres (79 inches) tall. It has a glossy, hollow green or purple-black stem.
The leaves are 10-20 centimetres (4-8 inches) long.
The flowers are trumpet-shaped and 5-20 centimetres (2-8 inches) long with double (nested) pale-purple corollas.
The fruit is a spiny capsule 4-10 centimetres (1.5-4 inches) long with seeds inside.
It blooms in late spring to summer.
Photographed in Claude Monet’s Garden, Giverny, France, September 2021.
Photographer: Martina Nicolls
MARTINA NICOLLS