In the misty forests of the Andes, where clouds hardly ever part above the slopes, a giant grew for a long time that could not be confidently classified. Now it has a name: Daturodendron, a tree up to 20 metres tall, described as a new genus of the nightshade family.
The first specimen was collected in 2004 near Bucaramanga in Colombia, but for more than twenty years the plant remained in limbo. The matter was settled by researchers from the University of Cartagena and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. A phylotranscriptomic analysis of nearly 300 genes, published in the journal Taxon in 2026, showed that the tree belongs to the nightshades and falls within the tribe Datureae, which includes the thornapples (Datura) and the angel's trumpets. That is why it is called a distant relative of the tomato, potato and aubergine: the closeness here is measured at the level of the whole family.
Outwardly, Daturodendron does not resemble the familiar garden plants. It is not a herbaceous shrub but a full-fledged tree with a stout trunk and a crown. It was assigned to a separate genus not on the basis of a single detail but on a combination of features: its woody habit, upright flowers, a calyx that opens along a circular line, a leathery corolla and seeds of rounded or kidney-like shape. The genus name alludes to its resemblance to the thornapple, while the species epithet absconditum, meaning “hidden”, reflects the fact that the tree remained unnoticed for so long. So far one species is known, Daturodendron absconditum.
The plant's chemistry is especially interesting. Daturodendron synthesises tropane alkaloids — scopolamine and hyoscyamine, the same compounds characteristic of the thornapple and other members of the tribe. Tropane alkaloids are generally regarded as specialised defensive substances, and a reconstruction of ancestral states shows that the ability to produce them most likely arose in the tribe very long ago. This means that in Daturodendron it is an ancient inheritance rather than a recent acquisition.
For evolutionary biologists, the most important thing is the place of the new genus on the family tree. Phylogenetic analysis places Daturodendron at the base of the tribe: it turns out to be sister to all its other members. This makes the plant a key link for understanding the transition from fleshy, indehiscent fruits to the dry, dehiscent capsules that are typical of many relatives today. The gap in the picture of nightshade evolution turned out to be more conspicuous than it had seemed, even in a group that was considered well studied.
The main problem is the fate of its habitat. The species is known only from Colombia and Peru, so forest loss hits it directly, and a number of publications already name it a conservation priority. The Andean cloud forests are among the richest ecosystems on the planet, but tropical mountain forests are being cut down faster than the Amazon, and climate change is drying them out. Direct clearance for pastures and fields remains the main threat.
The discovery is also interesting for pharmacologists: the tropane alkaloids of the family have long been known for their ethnomedicinal significance, and the new genus adds another point of study to this group. But before talking about practical applications, it is necessary to understand how the tree lives in the wild and to preserve the forests themselves.
