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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, May 19, 2002

Visitor puts treasures in perspective

By Heidi Bornhorst

Gold trees, at times considered weed-like Hawai'i, are much prized in parts of South and Central America and Mexico for their wood that is used to make dining sets, boats and furniture.

Advertiser library photo • June 10, 1997

A caller from the State Department a few months back asked if we could give a VIP from the Galapagos Islands a tour of Foster Botanical Garden. The Galapagos chain, with its endangered species and evolutionary diversity, inspired Charles Darwin to write "Origin of Species," and like Hawai'i, the islands are home to many rare and endangered plants.

On a Monday last month, Juan Nelson Chavez, chief resource manager, arrived at Foster Garden. We started showing him around the garden, and he was delighted by our large, historical and wonderful trees and plants. He encountered things he had only read about in books, such as the talipot palm — also known as Corypha umbraculifera, which has the largest flower in the plant kingdom — and the coco de mer, or double coconut, from the Seychelles, which he had seen only on television.

Chavez had a lot to say about rare and threatened plants in tropical America. I showed him our grove of historical Tabebuia trees. Gold trees, golden trumpet and pink tecoma trees are in this genus. They were collected in the wild many years ago and are treasures to the Honolulu Botanical gardens.

Chavez said that in tropical America "everyone must have a dining set, boat or furniture made from this wood, and today the tree is rare and hard to find in the lands where it is native and once grew in abundance." (Sounds like our koa, no?)

Harold Lyon was an advocate for these lovely and tough flowering trees in Hawai'i, as was his successor, Paul Weissich, director emeritus of the Honolulu Botanical Gardens.

Paul Chang of Honolulu Botanical Gardens, and later of the state Department of Education, also was another great advocate of these trees that grace our Islands so widely today. Chang had been in search of tough, less-thirsty and pretty flowering trees for the campuses of Hawai'i's public schools. The Tabebuia were a winner for him, and today we all enjoy his legacy.

Chang and other akamai experts carried on the work of planting these trees in schools, parks and along our streets, all over the islands. Mayor Jeremy Harris had our division plant 1,000 of these trees around the island just last year.

Some people have said that I shouldn't promote this "weed." The pink ones do tend to self-seed in sites where we'd rather not have them, including our native forests.

If someone can come all the way from the remote Galapagos Islands to visit our wonderful garden, shouldn't we local folks take some time to visit and enjoy this wonderful legacy from Mary Mikahala Foster, too? The shade and serenity alone is a reason to come visit. Please do plan to visit your botanical garden one day soon.

Heidi Bornhorst is director of Honolulu's botanical gardens. Reach her by e-mail at islandlife@honoluluadvertiser.com