Datura

I am writing about Datura not because it has anything to do with Lanikai Bath and Body or even Hawaii (as far as I know). I am writing about it because I had never heard of it, and I just read about it in Armistead Maupin's new book "Michael Tolliver Lives."

Wikipedia says: Datura is a genus of 12-15 species of vespertine flowering plants belonging to the family Solanaceae. Their exact natural distribution is uncertain, due to extensive cultivation and naturalization throughout the temperate and tropical regions of the globe, but is most likely restricted to the Americas, from the United States south through Mexico(where the highest species diversity occurs) to the mid-latitudes of South America. It also grows naturally throughout the India and most of Australia. According to the old ayurvedic medicinal system (at least since 2000 BC) in india, this plant has versatile uses in medicinal preparations.

According to Armistead Maupin, this plant is poisonous. And that's the reason I am writing about it. Hawaii is remarkably free of poision -- very little poisonous fauna and very few poisionous flora. There is the oleander, and there are stories about people getting sick or dying from roasting hotdogs on an oleander stick -- but there aren't many.

Hawaii is such a beautiful, calming place that it even reduces the effectiveness of the poision in poisonous people. Lanikai Beach eliminates it altogether. And this is what we work hard to do at Lanikai Bath and Body: create a place and a space where you can find peace and calm, and the refreshment of being at Lanikai Beach.