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Lili’uokalani Botanical Garden of Honolulu

Queen Lili’uokalani

The last reigning monarch of Hawaii, Queen Lili’uokalani, was deposed by a group of rich white American business men, ending the Hawaiian monarchy. Many of the men were the sons of missionaries who came to the Hawaii to spread the work of Jesus. The missionaries and their sons were gradually granted lands by the newly converted Hawaiian chiefs such that the missionary family’s acquired the wherewithal to control the growing economy. Finally in 1893, the American business men called on US troops to invade Honolulu allowing them to overthrow the monarchy. Their goal was for the Islands to become a protectorate of the USA, cementing their hold on the Hawaiian economy.

Lili’uokalani was convicted of inciting rebellion by a panel of the businessmen. She was sentenced to years of hard labor, which was reduced to confinement in her own bedroom of Iolani Palace. US guards paced outside her bedroom door day and night. To pass the time the former Queen composed Hawaiian music - many of the pieces are still popular today - and stitched Hawaiian quilts made from parts of old dresses.

After imprisonment, she worked to establish the Queen’s Medical Center, Liliuokalani Children’s Center and other charities. Although the government seized most of her land and assets, in her final years she donated this part of her estate in Honolulu to the Hawaiian people as a park now known as the Lili’uokalani Botanical Park, and dedicated to plants of Hawaii. It is situated adjacent to the Foster Botanical Garden.

Loulu palm 

Loulu palm

Pritchardia palms (Loulu in Hawaiian) is the only palm trees native to Hawaii (coconut and other palms were introduced by early Hawaiian settlers over 1000 years ago). There are 24 species of the loulu palm found across the Islands. Each island has at least one species unique to it, most vary either in height or the shape of their flowers. The palms are endangered in Hawaii due to habitat loss, rats, weed, and feral animals. Early Hawaiians used the plant for thatching and weaving cloth. 


Hawaiian manele tree

Sapindus saponaria is a deciduous tree native to Hawaii, and also parts of other Polynesian islands and South America. The tree grows best at higher elevations and can grow up to over 80 feet tall.


White flowers are borne in 4 to 8 inch long loose clusters at the end of the branches. The flowers are either male or female, but are both present on the same tree. The fruits create a lather when added to water sue to the “saponin” they contain. Hawaiians used the lather as soap. In other parts of the world the tree is known as the soapberry tree.

Manele flowers


Wiliwili tree 

This small species of Erythina sandwicensis is endemic to the low-land areas of Hawaii. Of all the native trees this one has the lightest weight wood. It was used for outrigger canoes and floatation buoys on fishing nets. The seed pods are flat like a snow pea, but twisted in the middle giving the pod and curly shape. Inside the pods, the seed flesh is bright orange, and the inner seed pits are hard and black. When polished the smooth seeds make attractive leis.The Hawaiian word for twisted is wili-wili.

The flowers of this tree are orange, and it is said the tree bark has a distinctive orange algae. The bark also sports 1 inch black spines which radiate out around the length of the main trunk. This feature is curious because the Hawaiian Islands had no natural herbivores to eat the bark. Why would it evolve with spines?

Currently the wiliwili tree is endangered because the small wasp that pollinates the tree is threatened by invasive wasps which compete with them.


Wiliwili tree

Wiliwili seeds in twisted pod (Wikipedia photo)


Orange algae and green lichen on the bark of a wiliwili tree 

Summary

This garden is devoted to plants of Hawaii, so it doesn’t quite have the huge variety of plants in the sister Foster Garden across the street. But what it lacks in variety it more than compensates with quality and the sheer beauty of the landscape. A beautiful babbling stream flows through the center of the park, complete with a waterfall and laughing children jumping in pools. It feels like the most natural Hawaiian setting that I was going to witness on this trip!

Lili’uokalani Botanical Garden (photo courtesy of Tom Wilson)


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