unfurling datura

Only about five min­utes elapsed between the first and sec­ond of these pho­tos of the unfurl­ing buds of sacred datura, Datura wrightii. I had no idea how quickly these things opened in the fad­ing evening light as they get ready for their night­time pol­li­na­tors. Stand too close to these mas­sive open­ing buds and you could almost get hurt!

There are times I’m sorry you can’t con­vey hover the inter­net how some­thing smells. This is one of them. These mas­sive eight to nine inch flow­ers can pump out so much scent every moth in the neigh­bor­hood comes for a visit. I usu­ally think humans and insects don’t have an awful lot in com­mon. But we def­i­nitely share an attrac­tion to this flower’s amaz­ing scent.

That’ll be the next photo project: set­ting up the tri­pod again in the dark, wait­ing for the moths, as I get intox­i­cated on the scent of the flowers…

April 29 2010 06:30 am | Categories: my garden • photography | Tags: • •

11 Responses to “unfurling datura”

  1. Loree on 29 Apr 2010 at 8:47 am #

    I LOVE THIS! Great pho­tos all three. I’d almost for­got how much I love these flowers.

  2. Noelle / azplantlady on 29 Apr 2010 at 9:31 am #

    That is absolutely fas­ci­nat­ing. Datura grows here as well, but I never knew the flow­ers opened so quickly.

  3. Lola on 29 Apr 2010 at 4:54 pm #

    Then I must watch mine very closely. At least I’m hop­ing it will bloom as this is the first yr. in the ground. It was only a stick with a lit­tle green at the top.

  4. Jean on 29 Apr 2010 at 5:49 pm #

    James, Those are fan­tas­tic pho­tos. I, too, wish you could send scent through the inter­net. I can almost smell that fab­u­lous flower, but not quite. –Jean

  5. noel on 30 Apr 2010 at 1:38 pm #

    aloha james,

    i’m a fan of these dat­uras also, but the brug­man­sias are my absolute favorites, i enjoy the scents.…aaaaah!

    thanks for sharing

  6. Pomona Belvedere on 30 Apr 2010 at 2:28 pm #

    Well, I am both a brug­man­sia and datura nut, and I thrill to their unfold­ing, too. I’m also inter­ested to see your D. wrightii, one of my goals is to col­lect all the species dat­uras — if I (or any­one) can fig­ure out for sure which is which.

  7. Town Mouse on 30 Apr 2010 at 7:57 pm #

    Amaz­ing! What a great set of pictures…

  8. ryan on 01 May 2010 at 9:40 am #

    Beau­ti­ful. Even by itself the first photo has a feel­ing of movement.

  9. Brad on 03 May 2010 at 10:52 pm #

    Great pho­tos. It’s a beau­ti­ful flower and you cap­tured it perfectly.

  10. lostlandscape on 05 May 2010 at 7:10 pm #

    Thanks, every­one! Although I like a lot of plants with del­i­cate, tiny lit­tle flow­ers, I really have a weak­ness for this plant, which is about as unsub­tle as you can get!

  11. Greg on 06 May 2010 at 5:56 pm #

    What a great progression…and so quick! I have datura seeds that I some­how failed to get planted ear­lier this spring, but I’ll tuck them into pots this week­end and see if I can’t catch up.

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