[3] It is an attractive perennial plant with a herbaceous habit, bearing infundibuliform (i.e. funnel-shaped), yellow or greenish flowers and shiny, black berries.

Like the other three (generally accepted) species of Atropa, it is an extremely poisonous plant, containing a variety of tropane alkaloids with anticholinergic, deliriant, antispasmodic and mydriatic properties.

The Rif and the Baetic System, which face each other across the Alboran Sea (which includes the Strait of Gibraltar), together constitute one of the finest of the Mediterranean biodiversity hotspots – rich in endemic species, of which Atropa baetica is a notable example.

Leaves alternate or opposite, simple, entire, lamina up to 13 × 7 cm, densely crowded, ovate, shortly acuminate, cuneate at base, mucronate, subcoriaceous and longipetiolate.

Corolla infundibuliform, up to 25 mm in diameter, twice as long as calyx, having lobes roughly equal in length to tube, green to yellow.

Rhizomatous root system relatively dense and shallow, penetrating to a depth of only 10–20 cm, but often spreading to form substantial clump.

[9] Eminent, Catalan scientist Professor Pius Font i Quer (1888–1964), who first described the hybrid, was also the founder of the botanic garden in which he noted that the cross had occurred.

[12] Atropa baetica is most easily distinguished from A. belladonna when the plants are in flower and fruit: not only are the open, cup-like, yellow corollas of the former more ornamental than the sombre, purple bells of the latter, but they also offer a more pleasing contrast with the glossy black berries (- if its luscious-looking fruits did not pose such a threat to children, A. baetica might make an attractive garden plant for the herbaceous border).

[9] Atropa baetica grows among the undergrowth of mixed, upland forest on dry, sunny, rocky or stony slopes (and also, occasionally, in moister, shadier areas near watercourses) in limy (Calcium-rich) soils (often in disturbed, nitrogen-rich locations – see Nitrification and Human impact on the nitrogen cycle) at altitudes of 900–2,000 m. It is not, however, a quick coloniser of recently disturbed areas, preferring instead locations which have been disturbed at some time in the past e.g. the margins of disused or seldom-used paths, bridle paths and trackways (see ridgeway (road) and Drover's road) and also forest clearings, often in rather remote areas.

Other frequent companion plants include the hawthorn Crataegus monogyna, the shrubs Buxus sempervirens, Viburnum tinus, Genista scorpius and Daphne laureola – and the tussock (grass) Brachypodium phoenicoides.

[13] Atropa baetica has a short growing season (around 5 months), favouring sites subjected to heavy winter precipitation in the form of snowfall and a hot summer/early autumn.

However, the toxicity of the leaves before the onset of senescence is such that the moth imagoes can display developmental abnormalities resulting from larval consumption of the plant e.g. deformities of the wings.

In this connection it is worth mentioning that there is a small, but nonetheless intriguing, piece of evidence, in a Plautine comedy, that the Roman province of Hispania Baetica may have been famed as a supplier of thrushes, as food, to the tables of Ancient Rome.

Neither vertebrates nor invertebrates consume A. baetica during the earlier stages of its growth cycle; however, during the month of September, when the onset of senescence causes the levels of tropanes in the aerial parts of the plant to fall, it often sustains severe damage from being browsed by the Southeastern Spanish ibex Capra pyrenaica Schinz.

Considerable damage, through browsing, is also inflicted on the plant in the Sierra de la Cazorla during the time of its flowering and fruiting by two non-native/introduced ungulate species, namely Ovis orientalis ssp.

An online account of a recent botanical foray in search of Atropa baetica populations in Spain and Morocco mentions a plant of the species which the author maintains to have been severely damaged by either feral pigs or Sus scrofa ssp.

[29] Like its better-known relative Atropa belladonna, A. baetica is a medicinal plant that has, in the past, been gathered in the wild[12] as a source of valuable tropane alkaloids – most notably Atropine and Scopolamine (=Hyoscine).

As a result, the plant can now no longer be found in certain localities in which it used to grow e.g. its type locality (biology): the wooded valley of Barrancon in the Sierra de Maria-Los Velez Natural Park, Province of Almeria[30] In addition to its former use in modern medicine as a source of alkaloidal drugs (discontinued, due to conservation concerns over the rarity of the species), Atropa baetica has interesting uses in the traditional medicine of Morocco.

One author[31] maintains this to be due to a confusion (due to a similarity between certain Moroccan names of the plants in question) with Anacardium occidentale L., but this is belied by an ethnobotanical note on A. baetica by the estimable Prof. Font i Quer, who recorded a practice whereby a chicken was fed with Atropa berries until its flesh was judged to be sufficiently saturated with the plant's poisons (or metabolites thereof?)

For some days the eater of the drugged chicken would show signs of belladonna poisoning, but, when they recovered from this intoxication, would find their faculty of memory greatly enhanced in clarity and retentiveness – an effect often sought as an aid to the memorising of passages from the Quran and to cramming (education) for examinations.

[15] These tobacco-related names imply that A. baetica has, on occasion, been smoked like tobacco in Spain and that there has been a popular awareness there of a family resemblance (particularly in relation to foliage) between Atropa and Nicotiana.

[45] While the smoking of cigarettes containing the dried leaves of Atropa species for the purpose of relieving asthma symptoms is well documented in the history of modern medicine,[46][47] the practice of smoking Atropa leaves as a recreational drug in the period predating the upsurge of interest in such drugs among the Beat Generation of the 1950s and in the hippie subculture of the 1960s is neither well-known nor well-researched.

The following colourful mnemonic lists the main features of the anticholinergic syndrome produced by intoxication by tropane-containing Solanaceous plants such as A. baetica: Visions caused by anticholinergics (including Atropa alkaloids) are often characterised by the following: warping or waving of surfaces and edges (distorted perception of objects actually present); flashes of 'light', 'smoke', visual snow, textured surfaces and insect or spider-like forms likely deriving from entoptic phenomena and form constants; and vivid hallucinations (indistinguishable from reality) of lifelike objects, animals and persons not actually present.

The state is further characterised by confusion, fear, outbursts of rage, plucking or grabbing movements of the hands,[51] sexual arousal and often also amnesia[52] concerning parts of the experience.

Long term use of anticholinergic drugs (including the alkaloids present in Atropa) is associated with physical and mental deterioration[53] leading to dementia[54] and premature death.

[55] Studies of the use of Atropa as a hallucinogen in Europe have generally focused on its role as a frequently listed ingredient (often under such obsolete names as Solanum lethale and Solanum somniferum) in recipes for the witches' flying ointment[40][56][57] dating from the late medieval to the early modern period – as described, for example, in the Magia Naturalis[58] of Renaissance scholar and scientist Giambattista della Porta.

The smoking, as hallucinogens, of genera of tropane-containing Solanaceae other than Atropa – alone or as additives to Cannabis preparations – is not unknown elsewhere and is, in some instances, a practice of considerable antiquity.