Terry Schroeder, age 10, of Enid, Okla., for his question:

What is datura?

The story of this word began in India where it was a name given to local grasses. The word was changed somewhat by English speaking peop1e and used to name some very different plants. In America, datura is the name of a genus or group of plants, one of which is the jimson weed.

There is much giving and taking, mixing and mingling in the world of nature. Even the plants do not keep to themselves. Their green foliage provides the oxygen that people and animals need to breathe. Their decaying remains enrich the soil to grow the crops that help to feed us, but not all plants are friendly. Some of them are deadly dangerous, and some classified in the genus datura are poisonous to man and beast.

We think that daturas were originally natives of the tropics. Some of them have made themselves at home in cooler climates, and the poisonous jimson weed may be found growing almost anywhere in north america. It is an annual herb that grows from a seed to a bush and withers in a single seasan. The shaggy bush bears large, fingery leaves, and it may be 1 to 5 feet tall. Its f1owers are large trumpets, white or purplish blue, and the fruit that bears the seeds is a prickly ball.

It was first named the jamestown weed, perhaps because the early settlers of jamestown o r their cattle sampled its deadly poisons. Its name later was shortened to jimson weed, but its fruit and its foul smelling leaves are still deadly. Scientists, however, have found a useful purpose for the jimson weed. Botanists call it datura stramonium, and the drug stramonium has been made into a soothing medicine.

The experts can make good use of the tricky chemicals in the jimson weed, but we ordinary folk naturally leave the dangerous plant alone. Winter is a good time to study how to spot it so that next summer we can do even better at leaving it alone. It is also a good time to make a study of other dangerous plants that may grow in your state. You will learn of one or perhaps several datura plants among your local unfriendly weeds.

The datura group is a genus of solanancae, the nightshade plant family. There are 2,000 of these cousins, including the tomato and the potato, the eggplant and the red pepper. The family also includes tobacco, the pretty petunia, the blttersweet and a variety of nightshades. The belladonna or deadly nightshade is certain to be on your list of poisonous plants.