Category Archives: Trees

Degarmoara Winter Wonderland ‘White Fairy’

A Degarmoara Winter Wonderland 'White Fairy' orchid grows in the branches of a mandarin orange tree.
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?

Wild pig

A wild pig forages for food on the Big IslandA wild pig snacks on a mango on the Big Island
There’s a sizeable wild pig population on the Big Island and they can be both problematic and dangerous. A while back, a local woman was attacked by a boar in her garden. She got seriously gored as well as having her leg broken.

This one was puttering around the yard in the early morning, snacking on fallen mangoes. It took him a while to notice me, but when he did, he took off at speed.

The numbers around here have dropped since hunters began making regular visits and when I do hear the pigs moving about, they’re being a good deal more cautious than they used to be.

A wild pig on the Big Island

Mangoes down, mangoes down

Mangoes lie on the ground after a strong wind.
I posted here about the progression of our mango tree from flowers to fruit. Here’s what happens when the trade winds pick up after a couple of calm days. The lawn was empty a couple of hours before this photo, and this is just one segment of the windfall, probably about a third of what fell in that time frame.

Something had already eaten the mango in the front. It could have been a wild pig, but was more likely birds getting to the fruit while it’s still on the tree.