A KEEN gardener has been left puzzled after a rare but dangerous plant began to grow in his back garden.

Karl Callaway, from Palestine, came across the Datura stramonium plant, known as Devil’s Snare, after rediscovering his love for his garden last year.

The 75-year-old had been unable to tend to his borders due to ill health, but he was shocked to see the unusual plant growing in his vegetable patch.

“I thought I had never seen anything like it, it was growing amongst the cabbages and I just thought ‘what the hell is that’?” Karl said.

“I just left it to grow because it had a lovely flower on it, but every time a new steam would grow a prickly-looking conker would appear.”

Karl became concerned the plant could be dangerous due to its sharp features and decided to try and find out its origin.

“We took it to a local gardening expert and she didn’t know what they were so I thought I ought to go to someone who might know about it so I ended up taking it to Hilliers to see if they would be able to help.”

Once at Hilliers Gardens, Karl came across an employee who was able to inform him that

the plant was “highly dangerous”.

And after a search on the internet it was also found that the plant originated from Mexico.

In an online definition it states that whilst Datura has been used in traditionally to relieve asthma symptoms it is also a powerful hallucinogen and has been used to produce intense visions.

“The man at Hilliers said that it is possible that a bird might have picked up the seeds from somewhere and has dropped them on my garden.”

The grandfather-of-three has now decided to burn the plants after they have multiplied from one to five and has had to warn his grandchildren to stay away

from certain parts of the

garden.

“They were standing at about four foot and they have fallen over, and I’ve already wrapped some up in plastic bags and burnt them.”

Karl would like to find out if others have had the same harmful flora growing in their gardens and is warning others who might have the same problem not to touch the plant, but to burn it.