Hardiest datura?

Is there a large flowered datura that people can agree on, that flowers more often, and earlier, and can withstand cool nights?
I have enjoyed meteloides but it is usually quite late to bloom here.
I would like to try wrightii but haven't yet seen seeds.
The small flowered varieties flower within days of planting it seems but they seem to sprawl too much for what I need.
Thanks- Dennis

Dennis, I've got Wrightii seeds somewhere. I'll save you some.

I never knew the name of my large white(good smell). Even comes back in zone 5. More of a bush, 3' x 3'.

Try D. innoxia. It's hardy to zone 5, and it seems to bloom fairly soon after sowing for me. Plus, being a die-back perennial, it tends to get bigger and better each following year. It's also the largest-flowered one, but comes only in white. That's probably what you've got, Hibiscus.

Brugcrazy- cool! I was trying to get these awhile back but no one had them. I'd sure like a few, thanks.
I will also try innoxia again, I think I have seeds somewhere. Oh innoxia is the new name for meteloides I think. My favourite species.

Thanks MsBatt, will give the poor dear a name. I really love the smell and large pure white blooms.

Would you believe that all my Datura's are still growing in pots, blooming, and making seed pods. I have them on the south facing porch step with no protection at all. I wasn't even trying to keep them alive since I have so many seeds. I haven't watered them and it has gotten in the low 30's here a few times and 30 with a heavy frost a week or so ago.

Donna, which species?

I just burned a huge pile the other day. That was the third time this year. The seed pods on those freaky things hurt my doggies feet.

My double/triple purple, triple white, and double yellow. The only thing I notice is the blooms are a lot smaller then in summer. DR you'll just have to get booties for the doggies feet. LOL The lilac throated stramonium are the only ones I had this year with spikes pods and they sure made lots of hole in my fingers harvesting seeds.

Donna- try and place a couple of layers of knee-hi panty hose around the pod first. It helps alittle.

No, Dennis, I'm pretty certain that meteloides is a different species than innoxia. I remember reading somewhere that way back when, the person who named "meteloides" did so because that name means "like metel", meaning that it was very similar to the metel species---but that they were in fact confusing metel with innoxia, and meant that it was "like innoxia", which had previously been identified.

In the Preissel book, he states that meteloides (a synonym to inoxia) has been dropped. It doesn't help matters to have all the seed companies selling them under wrong names. Datura wrightii and d.inoxia are very similar and hard to tell apart. D.wrightii is a larger plant with larger flowers and the corolla is sometimes tinged lavender or violet. I've found although d.inoxia is smaller and has smaller flowers.... the plants bloom much more abundantly. The seeds of the double daturas are commonly sold as D.meteloides.... wich is incorrect.

Dennis,

please remember me after holidays.
Don´t have time to translate Datura now.
May be I can give some informations to you.
GL

Now I'm a bit confused, as I thought wrightii was more compact with larger flowers. It does not matter, beautiful plant.
Poppysue what you said about inoxia and meteloides is what I read also.
Ludger, I am curious what you may know, I will not forget and I will ask you after the holidays are past. Thanks!

Lol - sorry Dennis. Maybe Tonny will pop in to help clear up the confusion... or make it worse - lol. Inoxia has always been a smaller bush for me .... 3 feet or so. Preissel says it varies from 1.5 to 7 feet tall. Wrightii grows about 5 feet for me but it's more lax. It sorta sprawls out rather than grow up.

Dennis,

you are very welcome

GL

Dennis, go to Tonny's website. www.surrowseeds.com//

It may be explained there.

Tonny is Surrow Seeds? Where have I been. I didn't notice the name!

I use a little different nomenclature that the botanists. Miller described D. inoxia, Dunal D. meteloides and Regel D. wrightii. The seeds Regel named came from close to the Panhandle Trans >Pecos in Texas and was labeled D. meteloides. Regel analysed the description of Dunals species and held it up against the plants he grew from the Texas seeds and thought that they were different species and named his much larger species D. wrightii.

Close to the same time where Miller described D. inoxia Linn`e recieves a specimen of this plant and describe it as D. metel. That is why D. metel is often confused with D. inoxia. Timmerman used a little different nomenclature and put D. inoxia into synionymity with D. wrightii, but kept Dunals species D. meteloides as a distinct species.

I don`t remember exactly, but I think that both Safford and R. Bye use Timmermans nomenclature (inoxia=wrightii), but other botanists use another nomenclature, wherein D. inoxia is a own species and D. meteloides and D. wrightii is subspecies of D. inoxia. These are D. inoxia ssp. inoxia (inoxia and meteloides) and D. inoxia ssp quinquecuspida (wrightii).

Personally I think that the three original descriptions and names are sufficient, so I prefer Miller, Dunal and Regels publications. Here D. inoxia has white flowers onlly and a distinct sweet/spicy smell from the flowers. D. meteloides and D. wrightii both have flowers ranging from entirely white to white with colored limb. D. wrightii is much larger and have much thinner leaves. The type of pubescence is also Different. D. meteloides can have all kind of pubescence like D. inoxia, but D. wrightii has almost always velutinose or very short close canescent look.

Here is one of D. inoxia

Here is one of D. meteloides. Note the plant is no more than 30 cm high and low and spreading. It appear to be a little higher, but that was because it became so broad it started to grow up against the GH walls.

Here`s D. meteloides. The flower is as slender as in D. inoxia, but it has a tinted margin.

The flower of D. wrightii is both larger, has thicker flower walls and has a broad stout apperance.

The meteloides specimens I have grown rarely exceeded 1 m in height. D. wrightii starts in 1. meter and the largest wrightii I have grown became close to 2 m and that was somewhere above my height. *lol*

I hope I didn`t add to the confusion. :)

Tonny saves the day! Tonny - do you have many that survive the winters for you?

Yes- Tony did save the day, and great photos. They do seem different when shown together like that.
Tonny, what is the final photo of? It looks different than the others by the way the corolla fold back so far.

Poppysue, no, I didn`t use ground cover this year, so I think that they are gone by now.

Dennis, the last one is also a wrightii. The corolla falls very far back on this type (I have about six very different types of D. wrightii), but I have another type where it fall way more back. *lol* ... and a few, where it doesn`t. It has also soething to do with weather. In hot weather the corolla fall more back than when its cool.

This is Datu-103 in in a hot summernight.

... and again Datu-103 on a cold evening in June.


This message was edited Saturday, Dec 21st 6:16 PM

Tonny, do you know if the D. meteloides 'evening fragrance' from T&M is correctly labelled.
I didn't know you had so many Daturas, if you are still looking for more arboreas, maybe we can do some trading in spring time.

I will like very much to. :) I have every Datura that you can dream of. I started collection in 1990 for my research ("How to ID Datura") and the collection kept growing since then. The last new (different) ones are D. lanosa (new species described and named by Robert Bye) and a kind of small specimen of D. discolor with dark purplish branches and round (instead of eggshaped) fruits.

D. meteloides "Evening Fragrance" is a typical D. wrightii. I bought several different packages in different years and found out that the contents was the same species every time.

There is another commercial seed packet called D. innoxia "Grandiflora" and it contain both D. inoxia and D. meteloides. I found my Datu-64 in that packet. It is an small densely haired D. inoxia with variegated leaves. I always grew it isolated from other specimens, because I thught it had the flu. *lol* ... but it can also be variegation not caused by virus since it travel with outwardly sterilized seeds.

Another comercial packet is D. metel "Belle Blanche" It contain D. inoxia and I bought samples of this one several years too and the contents vary. Its always pure inxia, but different types each time. One year it was a low, strong growing bush with thick leaves and broad flowers that had rounded limbs. Another year a high open slender bush with fine leaf and slender flowers that had sharp pentagonal limbs. *lol*

The next few pictures is D. pruinosa. It grew wild this year between the Marygolds.

Here are the leaves and fruits of D. pruinosa.

D. pruinosa is the smallest Datura species. It bloom when just 15 cm (6 inch) high and the flowers is about 2-2½ inch long and white.

Dennis I forgot that I treated the nomenclature of section Dutra in "How to ID Datura". Please bear with me when I call Brugmansias for Datura *lol* Its an old thesis and I am about to update it on the hard disk. Feel free to copy all the web pages for personal use. The server where they are stop working probably Monday and the website would be gone for a while. :) The nomenclature is throughoutly treated in the chapter "Discrepancies"

http://www.brugmansia.fastweb.dk/

What a great site you have produced Tonny, on the datura. It will take me a while to get all through it. I like your photos. Did I read correct your variegated specimen produces variegated offspring?
I will have to go through this and then I won't ask so many questions. Thanks for the link!

Yes, every seedling from the offspring is variegated. :)

Wow Tonny Great info. Thanks

Tonny, will you send those pictures to go with the drawings for the page on BGI I'm working on?

Yes, tiG. I start sending them now.


This message was edited Monday, Dec 23rd 4:19 PM

A variegated datura that comes true from seed! Tonny, you are a constant source of wonder for me, and you keep me green with envy! (grin*)

MsBatt, this year I also grew a D. stramonium with leaf and fruit variegation, but I only got one variegated from a hundred seeds. I hope next years crop will give two to four per hundred or better.