The Wonderful World of Bromeliads

Bromeliads are a family of non-native plants that grow very well in Hawaiian gardens and don’t spread out into nature. They are very colorful, their leaves come in many patterns, and they bloom in many different ways. The pineapple is a bromeliad. They seem to bloom at the end of summer, after the first autumn rains. Here are three from our garden right now.

A good place to see an impressive collection of different bromeliads is at the gardens of the Kauai Hindu Monastery.

Trees of Kokee

One more post about last Saturday’s trip. Of course we saw trees up in Kokee, the forest with many native trees is one of the main attractions there. However, we ran across two interesting non-native trees.

In the early 1900’s wild cattle roamed the uplands and destroyed much of the native forest, causing erosion. The lack of forest and heavy erosion was threatening the water supply for the profitable sugar cane down below. In the 1930’s, one of the jobs of the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) camp established in Kokee was to replant the forest. They experimented with different trees that now grow around the meadow, mostly cedar, cypress, and redwood.

One of the redwood trees between the meadow and the road is perfect for climbing, so we climbed it, nearly 150 feet (50m) to the top. If you look closely, you can see me in this photo, just to the left of center:

They also planted an orchard of mainland fruit around the old camp, taking advantage of the cool weather at 4000 feet (1300 m) altitude to grow apples, pear, and plums in the tropics. Some of the plums have spread to the nearby forest and they are so sought after that you need a permit to pick them in season. But we found one of the old pear trees, still producing small hard pears. I tried one small one and it was edible but crunchy and not very sweet. We picked a few good ones off the ground and one or two off the tree hoping they’ll ripen at home.

The Poinciana Saga

Last Wednesday was a very sad day because we had to cut down our beautiful Royal Poinciana tree. I didn’t write about it before, but this is how it was blooming all through June and July:

After the flowers, the leaves started filling in with a beautiful emerald green color. But then, on August 5th, a branch fell down on our neighbor’s driveway, probably due to the weight of the new leaves because there wasn’t much wind that day.

By the way, that’s our neighbor Joe and my wife Sonja, who is 6 months pregnant here. It cost us $120 for a tree maintenance guy to come and cut it up that day and haul it away, and I spent the afternoon cleaning up the neighbor’s yard.

Then we discovered why the branch was so weak. The entire heartwood of the tree was rotten, and that branch was only being held by the edge, painted black with pruning seal in the next photo. The rest of the tree was being held up by the outer layer of wood on 2/3 of the circumference.

That’s when we knew the tree would have to be cut down. It is really a shame, because it now had a full crown of beautiful leaves, shaded the yard, and still seemed solid. I suppose that it grew stronger on the sides that were still holding. It didn’t even seem to move in any of the storms we had before we could get somebody to work on it. But we knew there would be more storms, and several branches were threatening the house, so it had to go.

It took us almost 2 months (and $1200!) to find someone with the time to do the work, arborists seem to be booked solid on this island. But he and his helper finally came last week, and took down the canopy on the first day and the trunk on the second day:

It was really sad to watch the beautiful tree come down, still green and strong. Sonja even cried a little and couldn’t watch. The yard seems empty now and the house is more visible, as are the neighbors. We hope it will start growing back from the good roots, and we will plant other trees in the yard, but we will miss you, beautiful poinciana tree.

Papaya Sunrise

This must be the sunrise color that sunrise papayas are named for. Click on the photo to see the larger panorama.

Tree Fern

While the rainforests of Kauai are often called jungles, I don’t know if they qualify in a scientific sense because they tend to lack biodiversity. Being as isolated as the island is, there are relatively few species here, both plants and especially animals. However, to the lay person, there are plenty of unknown and unusual plants to make the rainforests here appear exotic. One of my favorites is the tree fern that can be found in up in the wet forests and is sometimes used in landscaping lower down.

Called “hapu’u” (PDF link) in Hawaiian, the most common native tree fern is Cibotium glaucum. It seems like there is also a species endemic to Kaua’i (found nowhere else naturally) called Cibotium nealiae. Sadly, Australian tree ferns grow better in the drier climate around the coast, so they have been imported for landscaping.

Here is a picture of one, probably Cibotium glaucum, seen from near the top of the Powerline Trail. The other trails where I know you can see tree ferns are the Alakai Swamp Boardwalk and the Mohihi-Waialae trail.