A stand of trees, off Old Saddle Road, is silhouetted by early morning sunlight.
Category Archives: Trees
Mossy ohia tree
In a strong contrast of textures, the base of a gnarly old ohia tree is covered in a soft coating of moss.
Twisted palm
Most people are familiar with the image of palm trees towering over golden Hawaiian beaches. This is not one of those. It’s taken an unusual path, twisting down and around and up again, but none the worse for its circuitous route.
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.
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.
Signs: Do not climb
This week’s posts are in response to the WordPress photo challenge on the theme of ‘transient.’
This sign is attached to one of two mimosa trees near King Kamehameha’s statue in Kapaau. The trees are huge with the kind of bumps and hollows that invite exploration. They’re believed to be more than 100 years old.
Not long after taking this photo, I was somewhat taken aback to see the trees almost devoid of foliage, the limbs hacked back. It turns out that one of the trees basically split in two, took out power and water lines, a chunk of the other tree, and blocked the road. It was, as they say in potboilers, rotten to the core. The cleanup is still in process, but will likely involve the removal of both trees, more than a century old, but transient in the larger scheme of things.
Fruit flies on a mango
This week’s posts are in response to the WordPress photo challenge on the theme of ‘transient.’
This little scene could be considered transient on three counts. First is the fact that this is a mango that has fallen from the tree. In the life cycle of a mango, it’s a very short interval between ripening on the tree and rotting on the ground. Second, this mango has clearly been chewed over by one of the transient wild pigs that pass through from time to time, more so during mango season. And third, these fruit flies won’t be around long either, having a lifespan in the region of 30 days.
This fruit fly, also called the vinegar fly, is probably Zaprionus ghesquierei, an invasive species known to have reached Hawaii. Zaprionus indianus also looks like this, but hasn’t been seen in Hawaii yet, as far as I know.
Hawai‘i ‘amakihi
‘Amakihi are endemic honeycreepers and the different islands have slightly different versions of the bird. The Hawai‘i ‘amakihi is very similar to the Maui ‘amakihi, but the O‘ahu and Kaua‘i birds have more noticeable differences. They’re one native bird that has adapted relatively well to changing habitat and introduced diseases including avian malaria.
This one was feeding from bright yellow māmane flowers at the Palila Forest Discovery Trail on the southwest slope of Mauna Kea.
