• Spring 2025 Trip
    Queensland Kauri: up to 150ft, tree resin used in varnishes, road markings, printing ink...useful!
    Traveler's Tree: per legend, named for water stored at leaf bases for thirsty travelers to tap into.Kapok Tree: seed pods release cottony floss once used to stuff pillows & life-preservers.Tropical Almond: hard, durable wood, great shade tree.Double Coconut: rare, endangered palm bears the world's largest & heaviest seed (up to 50lbs!)Palmyra Palm: has 800 uses (per Indian song): edible seeds, sap for sugar, fiber for weaving, etc.Loulu Palm: only palms native to Hawai'i. 24 species, but endangered for lots of reasons.Sausage Tree: African tree w/ long 'fruits' weighing up to 20lbs; eaten by giraffes & baboons.Cannonball Tree: fruits are foul-smelling & weigh several lbs. Member of the Brazil-Nut family.Staple crop for early Hawaiians. Thought to be the oldest domesticated crop in the world.Macadamia Nut: Hawai'i's top agriculture crop. Low tree yields make this nut expensive.the nut.Breadfruit: supposed to taste & cook like a sweet potato. I beg to differ.Candlenut: many uses: tattoo/cloth dye, medicine, seeds for leisure. Hawai'i's State Tree.the nut.Black Pepper: world's most popular spice; native to South India.The sneezing offender.Baobab: some over 2,000 yrs old (this one: planted 1940). Fleshy trunk is a natural water reservoir.Duom Palm: mature seeds carved like vegetable ivory; leaves for weaving. This one: largest in US.Chicle Tree: latex used for chewing gum; fruit for syrup/juice/wine/vinegar. This one-largest in US.

    Foster Botanical Garden

    April 19, 2025 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 81 °F

    One of Honolulu's 5 Botanical Gardens. If you just walked through it, you'd be done in ~30 minutes. But we decided to take the visitor guide and treat the visit like a scavenger hunt. That made it more fun b/c we had to really look for the tree tags.Read more