Atropa bella-donna, commonly known as deadly nightshade or belladonna, is a toxic perennial herbaceous plant in the nightshade family Solanaceae, which also includes tomatoes, potatoes and eggplant. It is native to Europe and Western Asia, including Turkey, its distribution extending from England in the west to western Ukraine and the Iranian province of Gilan in the east. It is also naturalised or introduced in some parts of Canada, North Africa and the United States.
The foliage and berries are extremely toxic when ingested, containing tropane alkaloids. It can also be harmful to handle and/or touch these plants. These toxins include atropine, scopolamine, and hyoscyamine, which cause delirium and hallucinations, and are also used as pharmaceutical anticholinergics. Tropane alkaloids are of common occurrence not only in the Old World tribes Hyoscyameae (to which the genus Atropa belongs) and Mandragoreae, but also in the New World tribe Datureae—all of which belong to the subfamily Solanoideae of the plant family Solanaceae.
