- Region
- South America
- Origin
- Andes of South America; known only as a cultivated plant and grown worldwide as a garden plant (angel's trumpet)
South America · Herb · № 876
Brugmansia spp. (o.a. B. arborea, B. sanguinea)
Herb · South America
Floripondio (angel's trumpet)
Brugmansia spp. (o.a. B. arborea, B. sanguinea)
A shrub or small tree with large hanging trumpet flowers. All parts contain tropane alkaloids such as scopolamine and atropine, which cause confusion and hallucinations.
Safety notes
Highly toxic: even small amounts can cause severe confusion, heart rhythm disorders and death. Keep it out of reach of children and pets, even as a garden plant.
Cautions by tradition (3)
- Healing traditions of the Americas: Highly toxic; can be fatal.
- Kallawaya healing in Bolivia: Highly toxic, also through the skin; can be fatal.
- Kamëntšá and Inga medicine (Sibundoy): Highly poisonous: the difference between an effective and a lethal amount is small. Even the healers consider repeated use dangerous to the mind.
Preparation
Do not prepare or use it yourself.
Use in traditions
In northern Peru the plant is also called misha. Healers used it in initiations and for divination, and externally in compresses for pain. A flower under the pillow was said to help with insomnia. For many peoples of the Andes and the Amazon it belongs to religious ceremonies.
Applications
Use by tradition
How different herbal traditions describe this herb. Amounts are traditional guidelines checked for obvious errors; they are not medical advice. For poisonous plants no dosage is given on purpose.
Healing traditions of the Americas
Attributed effects
Used by healers in initiations and for divination, and externally in compresses for pain.
Preparation and amount
Do not prepare or use it yourself.
Caution: Highly toxic; can be fatal.
Kallawaya healing in Bolivia
Attributed effects
Externally for rheumatism and arthritis. According to Bastien the old rumours that Kallawaya drugged people with floripondio were never proven; the healers themselves call it against their ethics.
Preparation and amount
Do not prepare or use it yourself.
Caution: Highly toxic, also through the skin; can be fatal.
Kamëntšá and Inga medicine (Sibundoy)
Attributed effects
In the Sibundoy valley the taitas grow about ten forms of Brugmansia with strangely deformed leaves, such as kinde borrachero and munchiro borrachero, and culebra borrachero, which is held to be the strongest. These forms are their property. They use the leaf for divination and to diagnose an illness; they lay heated leaves on tumours and swollen joints.
Preparation and amount
Do not prepare or use it yourself.
Caution: Highly poisonous: the difference between an effective and a lethal amount is small. Even the healers consider repeated use dangerous to the mind.
Sources
- en.wikipedia.org
- ethnobiomed.biomedcentral.com
- Rainer W. Bussmann & Douglas Sharon, Medicinal Plants of the Andes and the Amazon (2015)
- Joseph W. Bastien, Healers of the Andes: Kallawaya Herbalists and Their Medicinal Plants (1987)
- Louis Girault, Kallawaya. Guérisseurs itinérants des Andes (1984)
- Richard Evans Schultes & Robert F. Raffauf, Vine of the Soul: Medicine Men, Their Plants and Rituals in the Colombian Amazonia (1992)