vulcanicola was said to be a subspecies of B. sanguinea, but this was refuted by Lockwood's former mentor, R. E. Schultes in 1977. Second, Lockwood proposed that the species B. insignis was instead a hybrid of the combination (B. suaveolens x B. versicolor) x B. suaveolens. This was later disproved by crossbreeding experiments done by the Preissels, published in 1997. Distribution and habitat Brugmansia are native to tropical regions of South America, along the Andes from Venezuela to northern Chile, and also in south-eastern Brazil. They are grown as ornamental container plants worldwide, and have become naturalized in isolated tropical areas around the globe, including within North America, Africa, Australia, and Asia. Ecology Most Brugmansia are fragrant in the evenings to attract pollinating moths. One species lacking scent, the red-flowered Brugmansia sanguinea, is pollinated by long-billed hummingbirds. Brugmansia have two main stages to their life cycle. In the initial vegetative stage the young seedling grows straight up on usually a single stalk, until it reaches its first main fork at high. It will not flower until after it has reached this fork, and then only on new growth above the fork. Cuttings taken from the lower vegetative region must also grow to a similar height before flowering, but cuttings from the upper flowering region will often flower at a very low height. One interesting example of plant/animal interaction involves the butterfly Placidula euryanassa, which uses Brugmansia suaveolens as one of its main larval foods. It has been shown that these can sequester the plant's tropane alkaloids and store them through the pupal stage on to the adult butterfly, where they are then used as a defense mechanism, making themselves less palatable to vertebrate predators. Brugmansia seed dispersal was probably formerly accomplished by mammalian megafauna, extinct since the Pleistocene. Brugmansia has long been extinct in the wild as their fruits now shrivel on the plants without progeny. They have been maintained in cultivation as a source of psychotropic drugs, following the loss of their evolutionary seed dispersal partner by humans . Historical uses Brugmansia are most often grown today as flowering ornamental plants. Brugmansia contains deliriant hallucinogenic tropane alkaloids (atropine, scopolamine, and hyoscyamine) which cause delirium and hallucinations. In modern medicine, these tropane alkaloids found in Brugmansia and other related members of Solanaceae have proven medical value for their spasmolytic, anti-asthmatic, anticholinergic, narcotic, and anesthetic properties, although many of these alkaloids,