Brugmansia candida Pers.
angel's trumpet
Large puberulent, soft-wooded shrub to c. 3 m high. Petiole mostly 2-12 cm long. Lamina 8-15-(20) × 3-10-(15) cm on adult shoots, larger on strong vegetative shoots, oblong- or narrow-ovate, entire, sometimes ± sinuate; base often strongly asymmetric; apex short-acuminate. Fls pendent, very fragrant at night; pedicels puberulent. Calyx 8-12-(14) cm long, spathaceous, eventually splitting down 1 side to at least 1/2 way; teeth acuminate. Corolla 20-28-(30) cm long (excluding attenuate lobe apices 2-4 cm long), cylindric-funnelform, white, nearly always semi-double with an inner corolla whorl; tube ± broadly cylindric. Filaments hairy in lower 1/2; anthers 2-2.7 cm long. Fr. 10-12 cm long, cylindric-oblong, pendent, puberulent, rarely produced.
N.: N. Auckland to the Bay of Plenty, occasionally further S.
Probably Peru and Colombia 1958
Cultivation escape, in waste places in and around settled areas, also as a long persistent relic of cultivation in old gardens.
FL Jan-Dec.
Poisonous (Connor 1977).
Probably most or all of the plants in cultivation in N.Z. belong to 1 clone and seeds are rarely formed, but its ease of vegetative propagation by cuttings has resulted in it being widespread and very commonly cultivated. The corolla almost always has a second whorl although stamens and pistil are present. The sp. has previously been known as Datura candida in N.Z.
B. arborea (L.) Lagerh. (also known as Datura arborea L. or D. cornigera Hook.) is probably conspecific with B. candida being no more than a small-flowered form of it.
