DATURA ARBOREA Linn. ANGEL’S TRUMPET

Brugmansia arborea Steud

Local names: Trompeta (Tag.); borrachero, floripondio (Sp.); angel’s trumpet (Engl.).

Angel’s trumpet was very recently introduced into the Philippines. It is cultivated in Baguio for ornamental purposes where it grows well, though it is a native of Peru and Chile.

This ornamental plant is a small tree growing in Baguio to a height of usually 3 meters and sometimes more. The leaves are ovate-lanceolate, 13 to 18 centimeters long, and 6 to 8 centimeters wide, with pointed tip, unequal, obtuse or rounded base, and with entire and hairy margins. The flowers are creamy-white, pendulous, musklike in odor, and very large and showy being 18 to 22 centimeters long. The calyx is tubular, entire and spathelike. The corolla-tube is cylindrical and has very long lobes. The plant does not fruit generally in Baguio.

According to Wehmer it contains the alkaloids hyoscyamine and scopolamine. The leaves, flowers, stems, and roots contain scopolamine and some hyoscyamine. The seeds contain scopolamine and hyoscyamine, while the stem has much hyoscyamine and a little scopolamine, and the roots have some atropine and a little hyoscyamine. The leaves contain scopolamine 0.444 percent.

Martinez quotes Dr. J. Saldaña, who claims to have found an alkaloid in the leaves, which he calls floripondine. The National Medical Institute of Mexico analyzed the leaves and flowers in 1911 with the following results:

Analysis of the leaves
	Percent
Resin	4.72
Fats	2.08
Tannic acid	1.30
Glucose	1.00
Gummy principles	9.70
Dextrin	2.20
Cellulose	53.34
Mineral salts	15.80
Atropine	0.02
Moisture	98.40

Chemical composition of the flowers
	Percent
Fats	1.82
Resin	1.82
Tannic acid	0.16
Glucose	8.09
Alkaloid	0.012
Gummy principles	10.96
Substance allied to dextrin	2.50
Cellulose	63.67
Moisture and others not dozed	10.968

Martinez says that more alkaloid is found in the bark (0.025 per cent).

The leaves are official in the Mexican (3,4) Pharmacopoeias.

According to Martinez, in Peru, Chile, and other parts of South America a poultice is made of the leaves and is applied externally to accelerate suppuration of boils and to relieve pain. Martinez says that the plant could be used for belladonna if given in a double or treble dose.