The World of Apples

The apples that aren't

Thorn apple

Datura stramonium, Solanaceae, the nightshade family

The thorn apple is a poisonous annual of the nightshade family, with large, trumpet-shaped white or purplish flowers and prickly, egg-shaped seed capsules3. Kew gives its native range as Mexico2.

The capsule names it in several languages: German Stechapfel, from stechen, to prick, recorded from the sixteenth century5; Dutch doornappel, for its thorny fruit6; and French pomme épineuse7. English has also called it mad apple8, and gives the name thorn apple to other plants with thorns and apple-like fruit, among them Crataegus and Solanum incanum4.

In the United States it is jimsonweed4, from Jamestown weed: at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1676, regimental cooks fed the plant to British soldiers by mistake, and intoxicated them3. A German dictionary of 1976 described it as a plant growing mostly on rubble, whose leaves held a remedy for asthma5.

Sources

  1. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy: Datura stramonium, Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Supports: the accepted name and family.
  2. Plants of the World Online: Datura stramonium, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Supports: the accepted name and the native range, "Mexico".
  3. jimsonweed, American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, fifth edition, HarperCollins, 2022. Supports: a poisonous annual of the nightshade family with trumpet-shaped white or purplish flowers and prickly egg-shaped seed capsules; the name from Jamestown weed, after Jamestown, Virginia, where in 1676 regimental cooks fed the plant to British soldiers and intoxicated them.
  4. thorn apple, Wiktionary. Supports: thorn apple for several plants with thorns and apple-like fruit, Datura, Crataegus and Solanum incanum; jimsonweed as the US name of Datura stramonium.
  5. Stechapfel, Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, with the Wörterbuch der deutschen Gegenwartssprache (1976) and Wolfgang Pfeifer's Etymologisches Wörterbuch. Supports: Stechapfel, a poisonous nightshade with prickly fruits, recorded from the sixteenth century; from stechen, to prick; in 1976 a plant mostly of rubble whose leaves held a remedy for asthma.
  6. doornappel, Wiktionary. Supports: Dutch doornappel, thorn and apple, for its thorny fruit; jimsonweed.
  7. pomme épineuse, Wiktionary. Supports: French pomme épineuse for Datura stramonium and its fruit.
  8. mad apple, Wiktionary. Supports: mad apple as a name for the thorn apple.