An erect, annual herb (family Solanaceae) up to 1.5 m tall, with a yellow-green stem, smooth, coarsely toothed leaves, sweet-scented, white, creamy, or violet trumpet-shaped flowers which open at night and are visited by moths, and fruit that is a capsule, sometimes covered with spines. Thorn apple originated in North America, but now occurs throughout warm and temperate regions in wasteland, on rubbish dumps, and along roadsides. All parts of the plant are dangerously poisonous.