If you haven’t made your way over to the English Garden this summer, this is your sign to visit and check out our beautiful flora! Among them is the striking Brugmansia sanguinea, or the angel’s trumpet flower. Learn more about them and their interesting backstory below:
Basics: Brugmansia sanguinea is a semi-evergreen shrub with large, tubular flowers that resemble a trumpet. The flowers can grow up to one foot long! They grow primarily in the summer and fall and can be up to 20 feet tall and eight feet wide. Angel’s trumpet does well in the heat and comes in a variety of colours, including red, green, and orange.
Habitat: They are a South American flowering shrub, endemic to the Andes mountains. However, the IUCN have marked their conservation status as ‘Extinct in the Wild’.
Flying Pollination: Hummingbirds are a fan favourite visitor in the English Garden, pollinating the flowers. In the wild, the sword-billed hummingbird in South America is the only one of its kind whose beak can penetrate right through its narrow tube to drink the plant’s nectar.
Plant Uses: The angel’s trumpet was previously used as a hallucinogen for shamanic purposes by South American tribes for thousands of years. Please do not try this at home - because of its nature, Brugmansia sanguinea is a poisonous plant and an irritant.
Its Darker Side: Its decline in its native habitat is due to a loss of interest in cultivating this species and intentional eradication. Feared for its toxicity and superstitions, it was anecdotally reported to have been removed from gardens, sometimes at the behest of local authorities.