Homestyle
Moanalua's lovely monkeypods
By Heidi Bornhorst
Dear Heidi: You have never written about the most lovely and awe-inspiring monkeypod trees at Moanalua Gardens. I must catch the bus to Kaiser hospital every week for medical treatment. On the way, the trees inspire me and I hold their image in my mind as I undergo my medical procedures. As I leave, they again greet me with their lovely, sweeping-to-the-ground lushness. These must be a really good grounds manager at Moanalua gardens who maintains the trees with such professionalism and pride. — Mrs. MT
Advertiser library photo • March 24, 1997
Dear Mrs. MT: Thanks for your letter. I too, love to pass that way and be inspired by the trees. We played and fished in that park as keiki, and picnicked under the trees.
This majestic monkeypod at Moanalua Gardens displays the typical umbrella-shape of its species. This one has fewer leaves than most.
The natural shape of a monkeypod tree is an umbrella. It also is called the rain tree, in part due to this shape. Its Latin name is Samanea saman.
Those at Moanalua Gardens are the best that I've ever seen. I don't even mind (that much), being stuck in traffic there because all the trees in the park and surrounding freeway are so green and lush, and the flowering ones so colorful.
At a recent Mayor's Arborist Advisory Committee meetings we discussed the Exceptional Trees program, which recognizes particular trees that have particular value or interest; they may be particularly old, endangered, historic, native Hawaiian, majestic or first in the Islands.
There are two at Moanalua Gardens that are Exceptional Trees, recognized and protected by city ordinance.
Mayor Jeremy Harris is a great proponent of monkeypod trees and you can see new, young and vigorously growing ones, such as the beautiful groves along Ala Moana Boulevard, accompanied by a tough and appropriate naupaka hedge and St. Augustine grass ground cover.
I got a few quotes from some of the noted tree experts and professional certified arborists, about the beauty and value of the monkeypod trees at Moanalua gardens:
Steve Nimz is a certified arborist and owner of the Tree People, known as the "father of modern Hawai'i arboriculture" for his work in seeing that many of us have been trained and certified in the proper care of trees and for urging that trees in Hawai'i be pruned in a more natural and aesthetic manner.
Nimz has been pruning the Moanalua monkeypods for a nominal fee — a gift, really — for the last 20 years. "Those trees at Moanalua gardens are beyond value," he said, stressing the last two words for emphasis.
Paul Weissich, landscape architect and director emeritus of the Honolulu botanical gardens system: "Trees like the Moanalua monkeypods give more than oxygen, they give joy and beauty. It is intangible and hard to describe."
Abner Undan, certified arborist, Trees of Hawai'i: "A young grove of trees on one acre of land produces enough oxygen to sustain 18 people for a year. The canopies of those trees cover about five acres, so imagine the amount of oxygen they produce. I think they are the most beautiful monkeypods in the world."
Mary Steiner, chief executive of the Outdoor Circle: "There have been studies of patients in hospitals healing faster and better when they can see and be inspired by trees."
Susan Spangler of the Outdoor Circle: "All over the world, from the Midwest to Beijing, large cities are planting thousands of young trees in groves and along streets, they are all young saplings. Huge historic trees like this are mature and priceless and should not be cut down or abused."
Such trees belong to all of us who live in this "Tree City USA," also known as Honolulu. We need to work together to perpetuate such beauty, a simple reminder of our human insignificance. And beware the chain saw/bolo knife/power pruner in the wrong hands!
Heidi Bornhorst is director of Honolulu's five botanical gardens. Her column appears here each Sunday.
