More gardening stories... Brugmansia/Angels trumpets

The first time I saw an angels trumpet flower was in the early 1990’s. It was growing over a fence in Berkeley. I stopped my bike and just looked at it for a few minutes because I couldn’t identify it. I pride myself at being pretty good at identifying flowering plants but this creature had me stumped. The way the trumpet shaped flowers hung straight down kept me guessing. I gently held one in my hands and tilted it toward me. There was a mild sweet fragrance. It was the color of orange sherbet. As I looked up the throat I realized it was a nightshade plant. It was in the Solanaceae family of plants. This is the family of plants, which contain tomatoes, potatoes, hot peppers, tobacco, the ornamental flower petunias and roadside weed datura. The Angels trumpet flower itself looks most like a huge datura flower. Anyone who’s ever seen the Georgia O’Keefe painting of the datura blossom associates it with the desert. It stands upright and can be seen easily during a full moon. Angels trumpets, or as they are correctly called Brugmansia, hang straight downwards or at angles and are found in the tropics.
I slowly pedaled away making mental notes to return with the hopes of gathering seeds from these flowers. A few weeks later I returned and the plant was no longer flowering and there were no seedpods to be had. I snipped a cutting and rushed home to put it water with the hopes of it growing roots. I placed it in a vase and figured it would take a week or two to begin rooting. Twenty-four hours later the cutting had begun to swell where the water met the stem and little white bumps had formed where the roots would next grow. I immediately removed the plant from the water, put it a one-gallon pot with soil, watered it well and put it in a shady spot in the garden. Incredibly, less than 72 hours after cutting it from the mother plant, it was becoming erect again. While it did drop a few leaves, it appeared to be adjusting well.
I didn’t find the name of these plants for a while. Back then I couldn’t google common names of plants to find its Latin name as I do now. I heard that The San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing arboretum had some and after searching the grounds, I found a number of huge specimens in the very back of the gardens. I was shocked to see the variety of colors they came in. red, orange, yellow, white, and peach too. There was something else. There were truly large flowers and some, which were quite small. Some were large single flowers and some were double flowers, one inside of another. I also discovered seedpods so I knew they could be grown from seed. I asked about the next plant sale and was told it was a way off so after repeated questioning I was encouraged to volunteer time and perhaps this could be a shortcut to obtaining seeds. I met a worker named Don Mahoney. He ended up answering many of my questions about these plants. The first question I had was why do they hang down when a related plant, datura stood straight up? He explained Brugmansia are tropical plants from areas of heavy rainfall. Any flowers pointing straight up would quickly be flooded. This behavior can also be seen in Abutilons or as they are commonly called, Chinese lanterns. They hang down but other plants in the mallow family, which they are from, stand upright.
I began to spend a few hours each weekend at the botanical garden and I was able to buy cuttings of each of the varieties. Most grew well but I discovered that the smaller flowered ones, Brugmansia sanguinea and Brugmansia vulcanicola were quite temperamental. I learned the hard way not to place them in full sun. Unlike most members of the Solanaceae, they are not necessarily sun lovers. Brugmansia like rich well composted soil. I use tomato fertilizer occasionally to give them a kick-start and I try to make sure they have ample organic matter around their roots.
I have had some success cross pollinating different Brugmansia and until I purchased the book,” Angels trumpets” by Ulrike and Hans-Georg Preissel at the San Francisco Botanical Gardens bookstore, it was hit or miss. When a cross is successful seedpods of different shapes appear. Some are quite round and others are elongated. The seeds have a cork like texture and are shaped like little puzzle pieces inside the seedpod. The seeds readily germinate in warm moist locations. It seems that because the plants are so easy to propagate by cuttings, the majority of varieties in the bay area are the same. After searching online, I discovered Germany has quite a few new hybrids available in a dizzying array of colors and shapes.
One thing I discovered is these plants especially the single flowered ones look stunning with lights pointing upward at their base. The flowers glow in the evening. My favorite is Charles Grimaldi. I set some lights at the base and pointed them upwards and the flowers catch the light and look like paper lanterns with candles inside. I remember how impressed the neighborhood was by this display as everyone stopped by to look at this spectacle.
People who grow Brugmansia should know all parts of the plants are poisonous and people with small children should be cautious. Pets seem to know better than to eat the plants and snails too take a few bites and then move on. Spider mites are the one creature which like Brugmansia, and I use a brass nozzle hose sprayer to knock them off.
If plants get heavily infested they can be cut back aggressively and will sprout back soon after. Brugmansia can get quite large. A cafe in the lower Haight had one in their back area, which was at least twenty-five feet tall.
I contacted the Arboretum for more info about Brugmansia and I am directed to Illie Gaceu, a construction worker who volunteers at Strybing on the weekends. Latin names roll off his tongue without missing a beat. He walks me through a quiet area in the back of the gardens and can identify plants out of bloom at a distance by leaf alone. He tells me that there is seven recognized species of Brugmansia. B. arborea, B. aurea, B. insignis B. sanguinea, B. suavolens, B. versicolor and B. vulcanicola. The last one was loved by the famous Harvard botanist R.E. Schultes who was hiking on the Purace’ volcano in Colombia and he stopped to observe the plant. Instead of hiking further, he spent time observing the plant. Before he began to move up the volcano, it erupted. Schultes credited the plant with saving his life by attracting him with its flowers.
Different things pollinate Brugmansia. Hummingbirds pollinate some blooms during the day. Others are white and fragrant and reflect the moonlight and are pollinated by moths or bats. It was noticed that some brugmansia flower during lunar cycles perhaps to be illuminated for pollinators.
Germany is the hotbed today for new hybrids. Soon the rest of the world will have many new colors and flower types available. Illie invites me to his house to see his personal collection. His garden is astonishing. He built all foundations and arbors. Every plant both hanging and those on the ground are labeled with Latin names. He has more plants than any collector I have met. His Clivia collection is about 1,500 at last count. Walking is a chore, as each step must be planned in advance. There is no way to view the entire garden at once as it overlaps and twists and turns with all the strange and wonderful plants in his collection. Many plants grown here are unique in the world. They are Illie’s creations alone. Two large and quite different Brugmansia are planted near each other and between them is a perfect mix of the two. Its flower though is a mystery until next year.