I found this on a leafy, thick stemmed weed growing at the edge of my soy bean field in Virginia. We are between the Mattaponi and Rappahannock rivers northeast of Richmond and are considered part of the Chesapeake Bay Protection Area. I'm sorry I didn't have a camera with me to capture the entire plant, so I brought home one of these spiked fruits. The spikes are very pointy and solid. I can take a picture of the entire plant if necessary.
That's a nifty plant. Are the fruits edible? Since I first posted, I have been able to identify the plant on my property as what is known more commonly in this area as jimson weed (Datura stramonium). The plant I snagged the fruit from was no longer flowering and I didn't put the flowers together with the fruit. Our plants have violet colored trumpet-shaped flowers. They also stand about three feet on their own and are not vining. We have a lot of these and they pretty much line the edge of the bean field against our driveway. The flowers are lovely and the kids had picked them last year to give to their teachers and bus driver. I've been wondering what they were. I hadn't realized the flower and fruit were from the same plant. I do know the jimson weed should not be consumed. We'll just continue to admire the pretty trumpets.
Come to think of it, I think we may have some of these, as well. This or something similar grows in the woods near the creek. I haven't noticed the fruits, but the leaves and flower pattern look very familiar.
Anianna, I think I may have answered you on another forum. I know I recently ID'd Datura Stramonium from a pic of the fruit for someone. So I may be repeating what I said then. This is very poisonous. It was one of the important ingredients in a shamanic and hallucinogenic beverage used by southeastern US native people generally called "The Black Drink." There is nothing safe about this plant. People have died from falling asleep beneath a flowering jimsonweed for an extreme example. Please don't use the curious fact of it being used by southeastern tribes as any indication of its utility. The Black Drink also included Ilex vomitoria because the Datura would kill if you didn't puke it up. The most commonly affected are children who will pick the pretty flowers. The sap from the bruised or broken stems gets absorbed through the skin. Any farmer will eradicate it from fields or risk losing livestock from chickens to horses. It's beautiful, and interesting, and actually a common weed, but not safe to have around humans or livestock in any way.
