Deadly Nightshade (AKA Jimson Weed) Comes to Town

I have never had a Jimson weed sprout up on our property until this year. Ours is of modest size. We have only one plant, but I am watching it closely and enjoying it immensely. The Datura plant, sacred to Native Americans and also called Jimsonweed,  is as breathtakingly sinister as it is beautiful since it can cause hallucinations, blindness and death. It is night blooming, and it is visited at night by the hawkmoth which sticks its long proboscis into the flower to drink the sweet nectar deep inside and in the process pollinate the plant. If I had known that the fat green catepillars I gather from our tomato plants were the precursors to the hawkmoth, and my having Datura in my yard, I might not have been smacking them one for gobbling up my tomatoes over the years. Anyway, I’m on an earnest watch for the hawkmoth these days. Hawkmoth also pollinates Desert Four O’Clocks, clusters of burgundy flowers among dark green leaves, which spring up from a large tuber under the ground, grow quickly and spread rapidly, water or no water. They are really pretty.