This orchid hails from Sumatra and other nearby islands. It’s notable for its small flowers, with a violet center fading to white. Some varieties, such as this one, also have green edging.
This one was at Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden. For more information about Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, go to htbg.com.
A wasp reaches in to get some of the good stuff on offer in a bird of paradise flower.
Just in time for Halloween is this photo of a neglected macadamia nut orchard. The trees have become so overgrown that no sunlight penetrates the dark interior except around sunset and sunrise, when it slants in, low to the ground.
Happily, work is underway to resurrect this orchard. While I was taking photos, workers gathering fallen nuts moved through the deep shadows, their low voices adding to the spooky nature of the scene.
This is a lollipop plant or golden shrimp plant (Pachystachys lutea). It’s notable for the white flowers that emerge from the plant’s yellow bracts.
A bee forages in one of the splendid flowers of a cannonball tree (Couroupita guianensis).
A cabbage butterfly stops to feed. I’m not sure what the flower is, but I know it’s not a cabbage!
I am particularly fond of any plant that comes with a little tag nearby to identify it. It makes life so much easier.
This is elephant’s ear (Alocasia Macrorrhiza), also known as giant taro. In Hawaii it is known as ‘Ape. I saw this at the Hawaiian Native Plant Garden at Kohanaiki Beach Park, just north of Kailua Kona.
Native to rainforests in Borneo and Australia, elephant’s ear spread to parts of Asia and the South Pacific. It was brought to Hawaii by the Polynesians who first settled the islands, and because of this, it is known here as a canoe plant, a plant brought in the first canoes. The plant is a source of starch from the corms. The leaves and stems of taro plants can also be eaten, but giant taro causes irritation because of calcium oxalate crystals in the sap.
Papayas are a curious plant. The leaves cluster at the top of a single slender trunk. The fruit grows directly from that trunk. The scars on the trunk mark where earlier fruits and leaves appeared. The plants grow quickly and fall over readily. And, of course, they produce generous quantities of papayas.
Having said that, what I liked about this particular papaya tree was the light illuminating it.
Graham's Island 