I just got back from a trip to Costa Rica. Our guide was a wildlife biologist and was also a flora/fauna expert. I was amazed to see all of the brugs blooming everywhere and when I was so excited about them, she warned me not to get too close to them at night. She says that at night, they are very toxic and people get sick from them. One of our guides didn't show up one morning and she said he was sick because he had stood too close to one of the plants the night before and still didn't feel very well. Many people told me about this over the course of the trip, calling the plant the Queen of the Night. Are our cultivars different because while I know they are toxic, I didn't think there could be any harm from smelling them. Anyone know?
Annie
Brugs in Costa Rica
hmm, Dunno about that. One night when I got home I got out of the car and smeeled an overwhelming fragrance that turned out to be the brugs in the front yard. I was out there quite a while and even dragged the dh out to check it out and I don't remember getting ill from it. Perhaps since there are so many they are concentrated??
It can also be a "what you believe can become true"... I sat and inhaled the scent from my brugs last year repeatedly... just love that smell. It can become overwhelming and you tend to hyperventilate easily trying to smell 'more'. Makes a person a little heady... giddy. I can't imagine 'standing too close' can actually make one sick... IMHO
Tammie
I agree Tammie. I've spent hours sitting around them in the evenings and no problems. I might use the excuse for missing work, if needed, tho. lol I've read not to burn the trimmings and get in the smoke from them, too. Not sure about that, so all my brug trimmings are traded, given away or, in extreme (broadmite cases), bagged up and put with garbage.
Sounds like maybe it was a good excuse to skip work after someone had a wild night out. ;^)
- Tom
My thoughts too, Tom. Although, I can't remember my last "wild night" out, I could use it to stay home and play outside this spring.
I would have agreed that the guy was faking it, but the population of Costa Rica truly believe this. It wasn't just a couple of people. Oh well, at least nobody here seems to have had a problem with it. Thanks,
Annie
Sorry but I have been inhaling them for over 25 years and never any problems ...I think there is a lot of mythe and magic in the history of these plants and there no doubt is a lot of superstition ...but really I think someone was either ignorant or enjoying your reaction to the story ... you and all the tourists ... after all if it made people ill why would they be growing everywhere?
Nah I don't believe it ...mind you it's possible to be allergic to some things.
There is a lot of old tails going arounf in all of the Andes Countries telling these tails in one form or another. There is also an ancient indian fairy tail of a young woman that sleeps under a Brugmansia tree, and a spirit comes and wake her up and warns, that if she continue to sleep under the tree. she will come under its influence. In another version, she will be converted into an evil egale and fly up above tree and disappear into the skies.
Growing over 350 specimens of them at one time I can only say that I have had no experiences that the perfumes was other things but harmless. On the other hand, autosuggestion can do much in order for people beliving in these tails to actually produce symptoms of feeling unwell. Actually, in parts of Bolivia Brugmansia is planted outside peoples bedroom windows because of the perfumes. They repell an insect that is responsible for spreading one of Bolivias most deadly parasite induced diseases in humans.
However, what ever you do with them, don't eat them. I read the other day about a kid that was trying to commit suicide by drinking a bowl of cooked Brugmansia parts. He survived miracoulously, but his mind has been burned of, so his parents will have to take care of him to the day he is no more. I have heard other stories, where people was insane enough to eat from the plants and went on a hallucinogenic nightmare trip that they will never come down from again. That is scary stuff, but as said, they are harmless to grow in your gardens. I have grown them for more than 25 years and I am still around and sane.
Tonny
Tonny
Yes.. I'm of the No Problem Man.. school..
there is a very long and involved history of Brugs there... this sounds like a transional myth.. the new trying to insulate from the past.. and all of it's mystery ...
However... IMHO There is something to the fragerance changing one.. if slightly.. as point of support for this... it is why the fragerance is so compellling..drawing one to bathe in it's complexity.. this conscious draw is the result of the subliminal pleasures..and drives from exposure and alteration received before..
Gordon
This message was edited Mar 18, 2008 1:39 PM
I have grown them for more than 25 years and I am still around and sane.
Tonny, my friend, I have two hands over my mouth & I'm biting my lip, lol!
LOL Yes, sane, that was the last thing I would have expected to ever have used about myself, but now where the damage allready have happened, I might as well appologize beforehand , because it is probably not the last time I intend to use that phrase. The feeling is somewhat addictive. :)
If anybody in the SO-Am is aware of the dangers of ingesting Brugmansia it is the shamens. I think that they put these tales into circulation because they care so much for their tribesmen and want to keep them of a long distance of these magnificient trees to prevent tragedys to happen. Pretty much the same tales was circulating among more mexican tribes in regard of Datura. One of them goes, that if a child as much as look at a datura plant, the spirit of the plant will kill the child, before it can say Amen. So, personally I think that these myths are fabricated with a purpose.
There was also another SO AM myth in the direction of that a woman, which enjoyed the perfumes of the flowers she could be certain that an evil spirit living in the tree would come back later and claim all of her children.
It is true that with the spirits later claims the children at birth. Local mythology often don't make any sense, but that is because we tends to get blinded by all the spiritual talk and miss the obvious. Life is often very simple. There is only us to complicate it. Of course the tribes peoples way of thinking is different from ours, but the myth is true anyway. Brugmansia is strongly addictive. Like in heroin addicts, children of a Brugmansia addicted women and men will be born with the addiction in their blood. That is what remain of the story, if you decode it and translate it into plain english.
Tonny
Yes, exactly. We grow a lot of stuff in our gardens without giving them a second thought, besides from our fashination of their beauty. Brugmansia is no exception. They have everything about them that makes them easy to fall in love with. Giant, flowers, all beautifull in color and shape., the perfumes that excesses any womens imagination of what to place on the small table in front of the mirrow, and they are easy to handle too.
Annie, that must have been an experience for life to see so large trees all covered in flowers. After seeing Gordons photos I want to go there myself some day. Right now I have sat my mind to lern Spanish, so that I won't need anyone local to guide my footsteps, when I plan to disappear into the wilderness to study these giants up close.
Tonny
That's funny you say that Tonny, because just after you & I recently talked about stalking around Columbia and Ecuador I also dug out my Spanish CD's and decided to get back to learning it. :^)
Costa Rica is beautiful beyond your wildest dreams. There they don't have to baby their plants like we do, they come up like weeds and the people do nothing to them but enjoy. It was truly a paradise!
Wow! If we can manage to save up for the field trip in equal amount of time, it would be a pleasure to if we could time it and meet down there. I am trying to make some kind of miracle occur, but in worst case scenario I will need a time horisont of a year to raise the means for the ticket and daily needs for a 14 days in the field. Well, that is just time. Suddenly it is now, and we stand there in the customs with out socks streached to the limits with all kind of vulcanicola types and whatelse we can dream of. Can you picture it? :^)
P.S. I am scared to death by the thought of getting myself on an aeroplane, but in this case I will do it regardless LOL
This message was edited Mar 19, 2008 6:15 PM
Wow! What a great photo, Annie : D Is that an insignis you have there? It reminds me of a photo I saw of Brugmansia insignis from a bird lodge in Ecuador. Yes, they are pretty lucky that they can just grow them like that. Did you see many different forms and colors of flowers, when you visited down there?