Definition of "datura"

Garcias ab Horto [...] makes mention of an herb called datura, “which, if it be eaten for twenty-four hours following, takes away all sense of grief, makes them incline to laughter and mirth” [...].

1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, partition 2, section 5, member 1, subsection 5

"Apple of Death" is what the Jungle call thorn-apple or dhatura, the readiest poison in all India.

1895, Rudyard Kipling, “The King’s Ankus”, in The Second Jungle Book, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., page 188

"Suffice it that it was of the datura family which supplies deadly poisons as well as powerful medicines."

1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019

Datura did grow in Haiti, three species, all of them introduced from the Old World.

1985, Wade Davis, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Simon & Schuster, page 37

It was a decoction of datura that wrung the truth from the old woman, by sending her into a trance from which she never recovered.

2008, Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies, Penguin, published 2015, page 38