The leaves of agave sisalana are used to produce sisal fiber, which is used in making ropes amongst other things. However, what draws attention are the tall flower stems reaching 15 or 20 feet into the air. Around here, strong winds often blow the stems over, temporarily blocking roads and driveways.
Category Archives: Flowers
Fagraea berteriana
Fagraea berteriana is also known as perfume flower tree and pua keni keni. In Hawaiian, pua keni keni means “ten cent flower,” which used to be the price of a lei made from these flowers.
There’s a lot going on with these plants. The fragrant flowers start out white, then turn golden yellow. Later it will produce smooth green fruits that will become wrinkled and red.
Plumbago auriculata
Plumbago auriculata is a fairly common shrub most notable for its stunning blue flowers.
Zebra doves
I’ve been pruning a huge mock orange tree behind the house, a little concerned about how this would impact the birds that use it for food and shelter. However, this pair of zebra doves appeared to enjoy the late afternoon sunshine at a spot opened up by the pruning.
Grasshopper on a tree heliotrope
This grasshopper was tucked away in the foliage of a tree heliotrope on the North Kohala coast. I think it’s a Schistocerca nitens.
Shell ginger flower
The shell ginger flower has delicate pink blooms, which give the plant its name. But these pink flowers open to reveal striking red and yellow interiors. This one has attracted a couple of ants.
Bee on fireweed flower
Last week I posted here about the fireweed biocontrol moth, secusio extensa, which has been introduced into Hawaii in an attempt to control the spread of invasive fireweed (Senecio madagascariensis). On that same walk I saw lots of fireweed flowers such as this one, busily being helped to propagate by this bee. Such is the battlefield.
Degarmoara Winter Wonderland ‘White Fairy’
Apparently, there are around 8 billion different kinds of orchid. That, of course, doesn’t include hybrids. In my efforts to identify this flower, I tried all kinds of descriptions in my online search engine – ‘white orchid, purple spots,’ ‘epiphyte orchid, white with purple,’ ‘white and purple epiphyte.”
No matter what I tried I didn’t see anything that matched. I rifled through books at the library without success. Finally, I found a book, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Orchids edited by Alec Pridgeon, that also failed to solve my problem. But the photos in the book did seem to indicate that this flower might be an oncidium orchid.
So I searched for ‘oncidium orchid, white with purple spots’ and voila, there it was. Of course, this being orchids, some photos were identified as ‘White Wonderland.’ Others referred to it as ‘Aliceara Winter Wonderland “White Fairy.”’ I plumped for ‘Degarmoara Winter Wonderland “White Fairy”’ because that appeared to be the more numerous choice. In the world of orchids, there seem to be varying opinions as to which plant fits in which species.
Now the only question is, how did this orchid come to be growing deep in the branches of a tangerine tree?
Graham's Island 