BRUGMANSIA & DATURA

Brugmansia with buds

The Nightshade Family Solanaceae has a diverse range of plants which include trees, shrubs, climbers, epiphytes and so on. The topmost photos are those of my Brugmansia cultivar with pink downhanging fragrant trumpet flowers while the lower photos are of the white flower skyward facing Datura metel.

Datura metel

FLOWER DOME - AUSTRALIA AND SOUTH AMERICA

After the Baobab Village are the Australian and South American gardens stops, although most of the plant photos shown here are from the former:

• Anigozanthos cultivar (Common Name: Kangaroo Paw; Family: Haemodoraceae)
• Callistemon (Common Name: Crimson Bottlebrush; Family: Myrtaceae)
• Xanthorrhoea australis (Common Name: Grass Tree; Family: Xanthorrhoeaceae)
• Jacobaea maritima (Synonym: Senecio cineraria, Senecio maritimus; Common Name: Silver Ragwort, Dusty Miller; Family: Asteraceae / Compositae)
• Nicotiana cultivar (Family: Solanaceae)
• Araucaria araucana (Common Name: Monkey Puzzle Tree; Family: Araucariaceae)
• Grevillea brevifolia graft (Common Name: Cobberas Grevillea; Family: Proteaceae) 

BRUNFELSIA

Unlike the more common Brunfelsia calycina (synonym: B. pauciflora, B. pauciflora var. calycina, B. eximia; common name: Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow; Family: Solanaceae), this is a most unusual Brunfelsia with smaller light purple flowers, which I planted at the Irrigation Pond. I do not know what is the exact species or cultivar, but I do hope it continues to grow well so that it can be propagated for introduction to other areas.

A link on this plant is shown below:

http://toptropicals.com/catalog/uid/Brunfelsia_pauciflora.htm

BRUNFELSIA AMERICANA

This Brunfelsia americana from the Solanaceae Family is known by its common name Lady of the Night because of the overpowering fragrance from the flowers in the evening.

It was hard to take photos of this plant because of its messy scandent form. It also tends to develop yellowish leaves but I guess this is a normal characteristic of this plant. Like the Brunfelsia calycina (common name: Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow), the flowers change colour as they age. In this species, the flowers open yellow and turn white over time.

3 links are attached below:

1. http://toptropicals.com/catalog/uid/BRUNFELSIA_AMERICANA.htm
2. http://www.rareflora.com/brunfelsiaamer.htm
3. http://mgonline.com/articles/ladyofthenight.aspx

NIGHTSHADE

This was the moon on the 28th Aug. I took it with the plants along my corridor as the frame. The plant on the right is the Datura metel (common name: Angel's Trumpet, Devil's Trumpet) from the nightshade Family Solanaceae.

I used to be very excited about this plant with double-petaled violet flowers. I guess it has lost its novelty on me or perhaps part of the reason is because the flowers are facing the sunlight and not in my direction.

The stem is almost completely purplish-black and that is rare right? In fact, I grew this plant from seeds and now it has numerous flowers and are also forming fruits. But I do feel excited looking at the other coloured varieties of it.

Recently, the lower leaves turned yellow and there were some clusters of mealy bugs on them. After applying some fertilizers, the upper leaves are green but the lower ones remained yellow. Anyway, there are 4 links I attach below on this interesting plant:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datura_metel
2. http://www.floridata.com/ref/d/datu_met.cfm
3. http://toptropicals.com/cgi-bin/garden_catalog/cat.cgi?uid=datura_metel
4. http://www.tradewindsfruit.com/datura_double_purple.htm