Weird things happen when you disturb the soil. There’s seeds that can lie dormant underground for years, waiting for just the right trigger before they’ll germinate. The area around the farm where I’ve been all spring and summer is almost too fertile for its own good. This is the part of the south where invasive species like kudzu spread and take over beyond anyone’s power to stop. We have to watch what we plant, and even then, there’s only so much we can do.
The van is parked on a leveled area on top of a small hill. Left on its own, the hill is covered with all the weeds that are familiar around here, most problematically Horse Nettle (which is quite poisonous), Pokeberry (which is next to impossible to remove, if you let it get too big), and Lady’s Thumb (which takes nitrogen out of the soil). The slope of the hill makes it impossible to mow, so one of my summer projects was a thorough weeding, then tilling the soil and planting Sunflowers. It was too late in the season to get anything in the way of a harvest from the Sunflowers, so the idea this year is to let them go to seed and resow themselves, making for less work next year.
It rained all weekend, which always means a growth spurt for all the plants able to take advantage of it. This morning, I stepped out to find something growing right outside my door that I hadn’t seen before, very clearly something in the poisonous Datura genus.
As best as anyone can tell, the plant is Jimson Weed. If that sounds familiar, it’s probably because you’ve read much of anything at all about the history of witchcraft. It’s known to cause some truly unpleasant hallucinations when ingested, which hasn’t stopped it, historically speaking, from being used in religious and occult ritual to conjure such visions. It’s an ingredient in flying ointment. Also, it can kill you.
I’ve been looking closely at the local flora for the past five months, as well as on previous visits to the farm, and I’ve never seen Jimson Weed growing anywhere nearby. Most likely the seed was buried deep down and brought to the surface by my tilling, which allowed it to finally germinate. How it got there is anyone’s guess, although, per usual, the smart money is on “a bird pooped it.” Nevertheless, it was quite a surprise to find it for the first time right outside my living space, in an area specifically intended for Sunflowers (Jimson Weed produces moon-shaped flowers, and is one of many plants sometimes called Moonflower).
This would be far from my first time growing poisonous plants. When it comes to botanicals, a poison is often a medicine that you’ve used incorrectly; by taking it when you don’t need it, by taking too much of it, by eating the wrong part of the plant, etc. And it’s far from the only poison growing around here, too. There’s the Horse Nettle I mentioned before, as well as scores and scores of grass mushrooms that my best friend and I spent an afternoon picking out of the neighbors’ pasture before their four baby goats had a chance for a serious mishap, and many more besides.
The thing is, I’m as delighted as I am surprised. It feels very apropos, that I’m the one with the Jimson Weed growing out front. There’s no shortage of witches and mystics in the holler, and yet it’s not like this is happening across the board. I just got lucky.
The other thing is that I know Jimson Weed is indigenous to South America, meaning the plant is invasive, and we have to be careful about that. I’ve heard you’re supposed to dig it up by the roots and wear gloves to handle it. But man, it came to me. It also does have medicinal uses, which I find fascinating, and getting to know plants like this is something of a hobby for me. So I’m torn.
Doubtless there will be conversations with the property owners about it. I’m moving on too soon to be able to collect a seed pod myself, but I’m hoping I can get someone to keep an eye on it and save one for me, at least. The last thing we need around here is another invasive outbreak, but one thing I do need is to let as many people as possible know that I started growing witch plants without even trying.