This yucca plant grows beside the road into Waimea. I don’t know exactly which yucca it is, but it’s blooming now. I particularly like the contrasting textures of the soft, creamy flowers and spiky leaves.
Category Archives: Flowers
Aliceara Pacific Nova orchid
A lot of the plants, fish, and birds that I see on the Big Island are new to me, but I find it satisfying to identify them. It’s often not straightforward. Striking colors or patterns that I think will be easy to place can often prove elusive. Juvenile birds and fish might look nothing like their parents. Other times, a mostly undistinguished look might pop up first in my search.
Orchids are a big challenge since there are numerous hybrids. I’m pretty confident this is Aliceara Pacific Nova not just because it matches photos online, but also because there was a tag at the base of the plant, a useful search tip I’m happy to pass along here.
Tree poinsettia
The tree poinsettia (Warszewiczia Coccinea) is the national flower of Trinidad and Tobago. It’s not related to true poinsettias (Euphorbia pulcherrima), but is equally showy with its brilliant red bracts.
Bugs on a passion flower
This passion flower was drawing great attention from various bugs including a fiery skipper butterfly, a variable lady bug, and a host of flying ants, or possibly parasitic wasps.
Common morning glory
This common morning glory (Ipomoea purpurea) was twined on a fence alongside the mountain road, overlooking the Kohala coast.
Abstracts: Passion flower
On a recent hike, I came on several of these passion flowers. I don’t know what kind they are; it’s often very hard to identify passion flowers. The flowers hung down, so this is a view from below. Not only did it have an exotic look to it, but it had a most wonderful fragrance.
Heliconia Schumaniana “San Lorenzo”
I saw this striking Heliconia Schumaniana at Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, north of Hilo.
For more information about Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, go to htbg.com.
Sausage tree
The sausage tree (Kigelia Africana), as its botanical name suggests, is an import from Africa. It’s also one of the easiest trees to identify. Long stems hanging from the branches bear first the flowers, then the large, sausage-shaped fruits. These fruits can be as much as 2 feet long and weigh up to 15 pounds, though usually they’re somewhat smaller. Not the place for a picnic though.
The bottom photo shows stages in the transition from a flower beginning to bloom, to shedding petals, to fruit forming.
