Flower power can be deadly

Derrik Chidley heard good and bad stories about getting high from an angels' trumpet flower.
But he decided to test the effects on his own.

The 18-year-old was alone on a Friday night at his uncle's home. He said he became curious.

"I went to my neighbor's yard and picked four flowers that I knew were angels' trumpets," Chidley said. "I put on a movie, put the flowers in a pot and boiled them so I could make tea from it."

The angels' trumpet flower is often found in home gardens and is known for its distinct fragrance.

Experts said all parts of the plant are poisonous.

"I remember feeling hot so I took off my jacket and then it felt like I was floating and then I started gagging," Chidley said. "I couldn't breathe, like when you get the wind knocked out of you."

Chidley said he tried repeatedly to stand up but was unable to maintain his balance and kept falling over.

"I felt like I was going to die, like I was suffocating. I kept freaking out but I thought it was just the high so I tried to make myself relax," he said.

Chidley drank the tea around 11 p.m. His cousin found him passed out in the bathroom a few hours later.

"They thought he was overdosing on LSD because of the way he was reacting," Chidley's mother, said.

Other teens who were admitted for ingesting angels' trumpets. Many of them didn't survive.

Dr. Martin Stoner, a professor of botany at Cal Poly Pomona, said that people should think twice before experimenting with plants and flowers.

"The trouble is most people are ignorant about plants and their chemistry. Experimentation is risky business," said Stoner, who specializes in poisonous plants. "The hallucinations caused from angels' trumpet are there, but they come at a very painful experience."

There's a frog in Fl where if one licks the spit off their tongue, they will hallucinate. I remember reading many teens were violently ill, but can't recall if any were fatal. Why and how do ppl think to lick spit off a frogs tongue or boil flowers of a plant? I don't understand..Toni

Brugmansia belongs in the same family as a whole plethora of other plants that are poisonous. Nobody in his right mind eats the leaves of potato plants, or munches Belladonna berries (well, at least not twice).

Yet, some overzealous bureaucrats want to categorically prohibit one from planting a Brugmansia in a private garden (in certain cities), but find nothing by planting Rhizinus communis close to a playground or having hedges of Nerium oleander ....

Sigh.

I wonder what statistics there are to back up the "many deaths" claim. Sounds like media hype.

After doing a bit of research Ifound out that rubbing the flowers on your inner arms is the "proper" way to experience the effects of the angel's trumpet - so do be careful about not rubbing it on you.

.. I'm guessing the kids ingest them because that's how they get the effects of the mushrooms they gather/buy and (wrongly) assume that the angel's trumpet would be "used" the same way. Lots of things can kill people (especially curious foolhardy teens) and we don't eliminate the them.. we just try and educate the people (i.e. don't stop your car on the railroad crossing as opposed to "no railroad crossings shall be allowed in this city").

So, please be careful when you're around this plant, if it's Angel Trumpet. Leaves are fuzzy and emit a foul odor. They stink!!
What color are your flowers?
Datura grows mound-like, Brugmania uprgiht/tree-shaped.
Perhaps you do have a Guardian Angel: I'd thank her for her/his help.

Do you have a pic? Toni

Cold, doesn't this drink make you hallucinate? Aren't you afraid? lol.
My ex dh used to drink Coleus tea for the same reason, notice I said 'ex?' Just be careful. Toni