Botany
· Coarse, erect, branched, smooth or slightly hairy shrub or short-lived shrub, 0.5 to 2 m high.
· Leaves: single, ovate to oblong-ovate, 9 to 18 cm long, with inequilateral base, pointed tip and irregularly and shallowly lobed margins.
· Flowers: ovary large, white or nearly purple, axillary and solitary. Calyx green, about 6 cm long, cleft at the apex and divided into linear teeth, cylindric. Corolla white, about 15 cm long and the mouth about 8 cm in diameter, trumpet-shaped when fully opened. Stamens 5, stigma 2-fid.
· Fruits: rounded capsules, green, about 3.5 cm in diameter and covered with stout, short spines, dehiscing at the apex when ripe forming an irregular suture.
· Seeds numerous, closely packed, nearly smooth and brown.

Distribution
Found in open wastelands throughout the settled areas in the Philippines
Also, cultivated also for ornamental purposes.

Parts utilized
Leaves, seeds and flowers.
Collect newly opened flowers and sun-dry.

Constituents and properties
• Flowers - Scopolamine, 0.5%; hyoscyamine, 0.04%; atropine, 0.01%.
• Leaves: Total alkaloid content is 0.426$, mainly as atropine and small amount of hyoscyamine.
• Seeds contain 0.426% alkaloid, mainly hyoscyamine.
• Roots: contain 0.35% hyoscyamine.
• Considered anesthetic, antiasthmatic, antispasmodic, antitussive, hallucinogenic, hypnotic.

Drug Characteristics and Pharmacological Effects
Bitter tasting.
Antitussive, antiasthmatic and analgesic.
Plant as a whole has narcotic and antispasmodic properties.
For asthma, leaves and seeds are smoked like cigarettes.
The powdered seeds are used for cold symptoms and for excessive sneezing associated with hay fever.
Seeds pounded in oil are used as embrocation in rheumatism.

Uses
Folkloric
· Asthma: get drug materials, cut into slices and mix with equal quantity of tobacco and roll into a cigarette and smoke 2 to 3 times a day.
· Muscle pains and cramps due to rheumatism: get drug, boil and obtain a concentrated decoction. Wash the painful parts with the warm decoction.
· Gastric pain: use 0.3 gm of dried material in decoction.
· Sprains, contusions, snakebites, piles: use pounded fresh leaves and apply over afflicted areas.
· Severe cold accompanied by excessive sneezing similar to hay fever symptoms: use powdered seeds (0.1 gm) in pills or loose.
· Rheumatism: use pounded seeds prepared into an oil embrocation.
· Psoriasis: use the oil prepared by boiling Datura seeds with sesame (linga) oil in an alkaline water made from ashes of gabi. For the preparation of the alkaline water, simply dissolve the white ashes of gabi in water.
• In India, used for hysteria, insanity, diarrhea, asthma, skin diseases. For epilepsy, seeds of ripe fruit are burned and the smoke inhaled. Seeds used in small doses as analgesic.
• In China, used for asthma; the dried leaves are rolled and smoked like a cigar.
Others
· Used as a ritualistic herb for its hallucinogenic effects.

Toxicity !
• All parts contain tropanic alkaloids in varying concentrations; mostly parasympatholytic.
• Common side effects: tachycardia (fast heart beat), slight increase in blood pressure, dryness of the mouth and eyes, sedation.
• At toxic levels, tropanic alkaloids can cause hallucinations, delirum, mental confusion, coma and death.
• Excess ive doses can cause hallucinations, severe intoxication and death. The window of toxic and medicinal dose is quite small.

Studies
• Hypoglycemic / Antihyperglycemic: Study of seed powder of DM produced significant dose-dependent reduction of blood glucose
• Cytotoxic Withanolides: Study on methanol extract of flowers of DM isolated 10 new withanolides with seven known withanolides. Compounds 1,3,4 and 6 exhibited cytotoxic activities against lung, gastric and leukemia cancer cell lines.

Availability
Wild-crafted. 
Seeds in the cybermarket.