So .... which is it?? I've been told that what we know locally as Moon Flower is D. innoxia. I've also been told that it is commonly known elsewhere as Jimson Weed, which is referred to as D. stramonium. And what about D. metel? Is that just a nickname for D. meteloides? How does D. meteloides fit into the picture? Is it distinct from D. innoxia, D. stramonium and D. metel?
Can anyone this clear up?
Datura innoxia? stramonium? metel? meteloides?
Here are the source of the confusion between D. metel and D. meteloides:
I think, that after Miller described D. inoxia a specimen was later send to Linnč, that described it as D. metel. In one of Linnč s first works he describes D. metel as a smooth plant with single or double flowers, that could be colored or white. After receiving D. inoxia Linnč put his description onder D. metel and ad, that the plant is pubescent.
Somewhat later Dunal find a plant in Mexico, that looks like D. inoxia, but its also different enought to be a new species. However since Linnč describes D. inoxia not as inoxia, but as D. metel, Dunal and De Candolle name the plant D. meteloides. Meteloides consist of "metel" and "-oides" and iodes is the same as the phrase "looking like"
If Linnč had not made the first error Dunals plant would have been innoxiaoides. *LOL*
Several plants was also on that time found at the Texas Panhandle, thatlooked like D. meteloides more than any other species, but they was also very different from D. meteloides in some aspects. Gray was the one, that made these differences clear by adding to the description of these Panhandle meteloides, that Dunals description was wrong about D. meteloides having a flower with 10 tendrils and that the right number was 5. Gray did not know, that the plants he had at hand was described in Germany by Eduard Regel as D. wrightii. Regel has got in seeds from the US of a plant named D. meteloides, but when he saw the plant in bloom and with fruits, he became sceptical of its name. He made a list of differences between his plant and Dunals D. meteloides and described the German specimen as a new species D. wrightii.
This is confusing? Well, it ges worse. *LOL* After WW2 botanists tried to find a live plant, that looked like Dunals D. meteloides. The trumpet shaped flowers was very slender and the fruit missed the backwards curled manchet under the fruits. As there was no herbarium specimen the species name rested on a drawing made by an un-professional painter. Since the botanists didn`t find a plant, that could produce the type of fruits found on the drawing, they draw the conclusion, that the drawing was uncorrect and with it the species. A proposal was made - i think - in the fifties, that the species D. meteloides should be considered an illegal synonym for D. wrightii and this was voted for.
When I use these four species names I always refer D. metel to Linnč s description, D. meteloides to Dunals description, D. wrightii to Regels description and D. inoxia to Millers description. However, Timmerman she uses D. inoxia about Regels plant and D. meteloides for D. inoxia and D. meteloides. Robert Bye uses D. wrightii for all three and also use D. inoxia and D. lanosa. D. lanosa was described by him and its hallmark is, that it would normally would be mistaken for D. wrightii (here he describes a plant, that Miller called D. inoxia) that the calyx continues to be fresh and cover the fruits.
The picture above is D. metel, which today is called D. metel var. metel f. metel. Note, that the flower can be confused with the flower in this post (like Linnč did), but if you look at the leaves, they are different. D. metel has leaves, that is similar to D. stramonium and D. tatula. D. inoxia has pubescent leaves like D. meteloides. D. wrightii has leaves in between these, but with a very thin lamina (leaf plate).
If we consider, that the name D. meteloides became illegal in the fifties - i think - because no botanist ever found a plant, that matched the fruit of the drawing, I put that on a test some years ago. I grew out all speciments I had at hand of D. inoxia, D. meteloides and D. wrightii to look for such a fruit. I grouped the plants and grew each group under different kind of ecological pressures (water deficit, nutrition deficit, very hot, cool shade).
Well, normally these specimens would have formed fully normal seedpods, but under these experiments I discovered soething. Some of the pannts still grew a certain percentage normal pods, while other pods was either missing the calyx remains under the fruits or that the calyxes remained intact and covered the fruits.
A single specimen would under severe water stress develop both grrowing habit, leafshape (the rare with entire leaf edges) and esp. the peculiar looking fruits elsewhere only known from De Candolles drawing.
The botanists of today don`t recognize the species D. meteloides. Well, after the experiments I do. I saw it with my own eyes, smelled the flowers and my hands was stung by its spiny fruits.
Here are a comparative picture from that experiment. :)
Your experiment was clever and the results interesting. Did you find these anomalies in the calyx of all three species you tested? If so, D. meteloides, as well as D. lanosa, could have been any of these species, and it doesn't eliminate the possibility that meteloides and lanosa could be the same species.
You seem to leave D. stramonium outside of the confusion. Do you consider it sufficiently distinctly described as to be beyond question?
Practically, it seems that your explanation and experiment have broadened the question, rather than narrowing it.
I was pretty much resolved that D. inoxia is our local species (Moon Flower), that D. metel was a synonym for D. inoxia that had become outdated, while D. stramonium was probably a similar plant native to the west/southwest. I didn't know what to make of D. meteloides (and now I am even more uncertain that it is distinct from the other three species you tested).
What's more, you've introduced D. wrightii and D. lanosa, to this mess, and you seem to think that D. wrightii is a more legitimate name than the others.
I don't think D. tatula enters into the confusion. I have grown it, and I think it would be impossible to confuse with the large pure white nocturnal beauties.
So, does the name D. wrightii supercede inoxia and metel in your opinion?
his year I was very lucky and got a sample of a verified D. lanosa Bye ex. Barcl. from a friend in Germany. It is close to blooming now and I would say the leaves are different from all three species, but closest to D. inoxia. However I produced "lanosa-fruits" in all three other species as well as in D. stramonium, D. tatula and D. quercifolia. So the calyx covering the fruit can not be a reliable characteristic to ID D. lanosa.
Another thing I discovered was that the "inermis type of fruits is found in several species of the section Dutra. I have a specimen of D. meteloides (datu-72B) that produce almost spineless fruits, but it can be produced in D. inoxia and D. ferox as well.
Here is the fruit of D. tatula var. inermis. :)
D. tatula was originally described as a species different from D. stramonium by Linné and I admit, that Linné was probaby right, even though modern botany gather these two species with D. bernhardtii and re-named them D. stramonium. Thus you get D. stramonium var stramonium, D. stramonium var. inermis, D. stramonium var. stramonium f. labilis (both spiny and smooth fruits on the same plant), D. stramonium var tatula f. tatula, D. stramonium var godronii (lavender flower, smooth fruit) D. stramonium var. tatula f. bernhardtii. Some even tried to put D. ferox and D. quercifolia into D. stramonium too. *LOL*
I know, that D. stramonium cross with D. inoxia and D. meteloides and D. wrightii. The same is true about D. tatula. I have never carried the experiment through, but I am pretty sure, that the species D. metel origin from such crosses. During the years I have found the mentioned species developed secondary corolla growth attached to the filaments and have also grown a true double of D. inoxia. I think, that it is possible to produce the primitive forms of the white, single metel by crossing D. stramonium to D. inoxia and the colored metels by using D. tatula or bernhardtii and cross to D. meteloides. Maybe I will try that some day and if it prove correct and primitive specimens of D. etel come out of the crosses it would not longer be D. metel, but D. x metel. *LOL* - like B. x candida. :)
*LOL* I forgot your last question. *LOL* No I think, that both D. inoxia, D. meteloides and D. wrightii is valid names. I have seen many white flowered specimens of D. meteloides and D. wrigthii, but never believed, that these was D. inoxia. D. inoxia has a very distinct heavy, sweet and spicy scent, that can`t be confused with any other Datura species. It is a bit more difficult to tell D. meteloides from D. wrightii, but the main characteristic I use it the leaf. Meteloides leaves are have a thick lamina and can be pubescent. D. wrightii has a very fine and thin lamina, which can be velutinose, when the leaf is small and new, but become sub-glabrous, when the leaf matures.
*LOL* There is also differences in the venation, that you can use to tell them apart, but I have to take you around in my garden for several hours and show examples, before it become evident. These are very minor details.