Showy trumpet-shaped, white flowers cover this robust, sprawling plant that can spread across 4–5 feet. Note the dense, spiny, round fruit. Though this hallucinogenic plant and its relatives have been used historically by shamans around the world, all parts are deadly poisonous.

FLOWERS: May–October. White, trumpet-shaped, 6–10-inches (15–25 cm) long, petals may be violet tinged, slender threads extend from tips of the 5 fused petals. The fruit, a 1-inch diameter (25 mm) capsule (thorn-apple) densely covered with short spines, grows on bottomside of stem and gives the plant another common name: Sacred Thorn-apple.

LEAVES: Alternate. Blades oval, 2 1/2–10-inches (6–25 cm) long, margin entire, wavy, lobed, or coarsely toothed.

HABITAT: Sandy, gravelly soils, bosques, roadsides, waste places; desert grasslands and scrub, sagebrush, pinyon-juniper forests.

ELEVATION: 3,600–7,000 feet.

RANGE: Native to Western U.S., naturalized almost nationwide.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Oak-leaf Thronapple, D. quercifolia, nearly statewide below 6,000 feet, has 1 1/2–3-inch (4–8 cm) long flowers, erect fruit, deeply-lobed leaves. The introduced D. stramonium, often seen in landscapes, has leaves with broad, deep teeth, flowers ending with folded, pinwheel-shaped petals, and fruit pointing upward and with short spines.

NM COUNTIES: Widespread in NM in low- to mid-elevation, sandy habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Chaves, Cibola, Dona Ana, Eddy, Grant, Guadalupe, Hidalgo,  Lincoln, Los Alamos, Luna, McKinley, Otero, Roosevelt, San Juan, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Sierra, Socorro, Valencia.