Plant identification help!

[telophase]

Asking for my mom. This is a plant that showed up randomly in her garden this year. It had big trumpet flowers earlier - she sent me a pic which is lost in my inbox somewhere, but this fall when it lost its leaves and developed a big spiky ball seed pod/fruit/whatsit, she pulled it up, to discover its root looks tuberous, sort of like horseradish.

Here's a photo I took of it on the patio, with my foot for scale.





And a bit closer on the spiky bit.



The root is that horizontal job at the bottom of the pic.

Anyway, it's been driving her nuts that she has no idea what it is. Any ideas?

Comments

[settiai]

It looks kind of like a datura to me.

[rusty76]

Datura - probably white. It can be very pretty and is highly drought tolerant.

[lanerobins.livejournal.com]

Delurking to say it might be datura. It has pods like that, and has trumpet like flowers.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, it's wild cucumber. Almost unkillable; extremely invasive. She should probably dab Roundup on anything that resprouts.

It has an enormous tuberous root. If she has dug that out, she can watch for resurgences anyway.