Back in the 19th century, an English clergyman wondered whether the number of common names applied to plants in the name of angels exceeded those credited to the devil. His research revealed that the devil, botanically speaking, won out.
Updated delving into the subject confirms the man of the cloth's investigation--with a few strange twists. Yarrow, Achillea millefolium, is known to some as Angel Flower. However, it has also been labeled both the Devil's Nettle and the Devil's Plaything, perhaps because it naturalizes so easily.
More understandably, Datura also appears in both lists, and several times at that. Valued for their magnificent trumpet-shaped blooms they are also known to be hallucinogenic even causing fatalities. Thus, Datura sanguinea, a fragrant shrub from southeast Brazil may carry name Angel's Tears but Angel's Trumpet, D. inoxia, might also be the Devil's Trumpet. D. stramonium doubles as both the Devil's Apple and Devil's Weed
Perhaps we shouldn't take these juxtapositions too seriously though. As G. K. Chesterton once pointed out, "The reason angels can fly is because they take themselves lightly."
