Featured Properties

Natural History

AFRICAN TULIP TREE
(Spathodea campanulata)

Many of the trees in Hawaii’s secondary rain forest started as garden plants. Their spread into the wild was more or less accidental. Today, many lowland forests are dominated by trees introduced for their beauty.

The ubiquitous African tulip tree, which can be found in parks, in public and private gardens, and along roadsides everywhere, can also be found as one of the dominant canopy trees in the deep ravines of the rainforest. Sometimes the trees are grown as a hedge.

One of the showiest tropical trees, the fast-growing African Tulip has been called “the flame of the forest.” It was discovered by botanist Palisot Beauvois on the Gold Coast of Africa in 1787 and was first recorded in Hawaii prior to the turn of the century. The tree grows anywhere, tolerating dryness and neglect and is prone to becoming naturalized in disturbed lowland areas like pastures and shrub-lands. On Maui, they are found up to about the 3,000- foot elevation.

The tree has an upright, rather tall form with light gray bark. The branches start well up on the trunk. The compound leaves are about a foot or two long, are made up of three or four pairs of irregularly shaped, large leaflets with a single one at the end. The leaflets are about three to five inches long. They are dark green in color, leathery, with conspicuous veining.

Large, fiery red or golden bell-shaped flowers crown the high branches of this tree at almost all times of the year, but especially from January to June. The flame-red flowers are bordered by yellow. They grow in circular groups around closely crowded buds. The tree is not related to “real” tulips. Their relatives are trumpet vines, jacarandas and sausage trees, all members of the Bignonia family.

The unopened buds are covered with rusty brown hairs and they spurt compressed water when pinched between the fingers, giving the tree still another name: Fountain Tree. Birds are often startled by spurting water when their beaks pierce a bud. Island kids everywhere learn that squeezing one of the buds into a friend’s face (without having it back-fire into your own face) is a cool, giggle-inducing prank.

The individual flowers suggest a lopsided cup with five frilled irregular lobes. A few of the buds on the outside of the circle open at one time, so the tree appears to be ever-blooming. The remaining buds crowning the center of the cluster are sharply pointed and a dull, yellowish green.

Usually, the trees are at their best in midwinter and after rain.

Both the blossoms and the leaves yield dyes ranging from mustard to dark brown. The flowers are followed by boat-shaped pods, some of which grow to as much as two feet long. Many island youngsters have used the pods to make toy canoes, often as a summer craft project or for a class diorama. (The toy boats really do float.) They are also used in floral arrangements. The long pods split open and spill out masses of flaky, shining, winged seeds which sprout readily. The seeds are sometimes strung together to make a lei, but since the lei requires many, many seeds, it is not a popular pastime.

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Arts & Culture

THE DISASTER-PRONE CHURCH AND THE ROYAL GRAVEYARD

Waiola Congregational Church, formerly known as Wainee Church, is off Shaw Street near Wainee Street, east of the Malu-ulu-o-lele Park, where there was once a large pond with a tiny island that was the residence for King Kamehameha III and his entourage.  The pond was once called Mokuhinia and was the legendary home of water spirits

For centuries, the Moku’ula (sacred island) was the abode of Maui chiefs.  The islet held an ornate royal burial chamber.  In the 16th century, when the young daughter of Chief Piilani died, she was ceremoniously deified at the pond as Kihawahine, the mo’o akua (a sacred water dragon) who was believed to make a circuit of the islands of Maui, Hawaii, Oahu and Kauai to unify the royal bloodlines. 

Dedicated in 1823, the original Waine’e Church was the first Christian church on Maui.  On this site, the earliest Christian services were held, as commanded by Queen Keopuolani, King Kamehameha’s sacred wife.  On June 1, 1823, Queen Keopuolani, young Princess Nahienaena, Prime Minister Kalanimoku and other chiefs with their attendants  and several hundred commoners assembled for worship in the open air.

A temporary shelter was started by Kalanimoku, Keopuolani and Keoua, the acting Governor of Maui.  This church was dedicated on August 24, 1823. 

After almost eight years, this church was replaced by a coral, stone and wood building, the first stone church in the islands built by Hawaiians.  It was “two stories high with galleries to seat 3,000 people in the native manner, close together on the floor,” according to Dr. Dwight Baldwin.  It took nearly three years to build. 

The church had to be remodeled and rebuilt again sixteen years later as walls were “tottering and ready to fall,” following extensive wind damage. Then in 1858, one of Lahaina’s infamous windstorms brought by West Maui’s notorious Kaua’ula Valley winds, brought down the steeple, bell, and half of the roof.  In 1894, the repaired church was torched by royalists because its minister supported the annexation of Hawaii to the United States.  They burned down the church to the ground.

Rebuilt yet again and rededicated in 1897, it was struck by accidental fire in 1947, when sparks from burning rubbish destroyed part of the church.  Repairs were made only to have the church collapse in a heap in 1951 when 80-mile-an-hour winds finished a demolition that termites had been slowly working at for several years.  The church was “lifted from its foundations and collapsed in a heap,” according to a report in the Maui News.

After the latest reconstruction was completed in 1953, the congregation decided to change the name from Wainee, “moving water” to Waiola, “water of life.”  The church remained standing after that.  Waiola Church has since added a new dining and social hall.

The cemetery behind the church is one of the oldest church graveyards in Hawaii.  Many Hawaiian chiefs and queens who had converted to the Western religion are buried there. 

Included among the royal dead is King Kaumuali’i, the ruler of Kauai, who became the captive consort of Queen Kaahumanu.  Queen Kalakua, one of Kamehameha’s many wives who, upon his death, married Maui Governor Hoapili, is in the cemetery.  She became known as Wahine Hoapili and deeded 1,000 acres of her land to Lahainaluna for a school.

Governor Hoapili, too, lies in the cemetery.  Converted to Christianity by his two wives, Keopuolani and Kalakua (both widows of his dearest friend, King Kamehameha I), he was a staunch supporter of the Church.  As governor, he made laws that backed up the missionary campaign against alcohol and prostitution.  At his request, he was buried next to the grave of the Reverend Charles McDonald, a young teacher who had died the year before.

Queen Keopuolani, another of Kamehameha’s wives and the highest ranking woman in Hawaii, as well as the mother of Liholiho, who became King Kamehameha II, is another royal interred in the graveyard.  She was one of the first of the ali’i to embrace Christianity.   In 1823, when she died, the people used rocks from a nearby heiau (temple) to construct a wall around her tomb. 

The tragically confused Princess Nahienaena, daughter of King Kamehameha and Queen Keopuolani, was eventually buried there as well.  The Princess was trapped in a struggle between the customs of her native culture and the rigid missionary mores that could not accept nor condone the deep love between her and her brother, Kauikeaouli, King Kamehameha III.   The princess died in 1836, from complications after the birth of a child that lived for just a few hours, after a short life of 21 years spent struggling between either following the missionary precepts or rebelling against them.  One native source says the young princess was buried on the rock island of Moku’ula, close to the den of the mo’o akua Kihawahine and where her brother Kauikeaouli had made his home.  In 1918 the pond was filled in and the rock island buried.  Malu-ulu-o-lele Park was constructed over it.

Graves of early missionary families and distinguished citizens of 19th century Lahaina are also found there.   The Reverend William Richards, Lahaina’s first missionary, was laid to rest there.  He is buried near the tomb of his first royal pupil, Queen Keopuolani.  Commoners, sailors, elders and children rest here as well.  Many of the old tombstones are for children who died young while others have cameo photos and intriguing inscriptions.

Braddah-Nics Lexicon

STANDARD: And you are....?
BRADDAH-NICS: Eh! Who you?

* * * * * *

STANDARD: My mother really liked that one.
BRADDAH-NICS: My maddah, she fancy dat one.

* * * * * *

STANDARD: I had one of those.
BRADDAH-NICS: I use to get one da kine li' dat.

* * * * * *

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Local Grinds

LEMON CHICKEN

Ingredients:

Procedure:

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Spotlight On….. Lahaina Jodo Mission

A short bit away from bustling Lahaina Town sits the peaceful Puunoa Point. About a century ago, Puunoa Point provided a place for migrant Japanese workers to gather after a long day in the sugar fields. Having no proper place of worship at the time, the workers constructed a small wooden temple here; now the site of the Lahaina Jodo Mission. For many years the small wooden temple stood overlooking the islands of Lanai, Molokai, and Kahoolawe, until 1968 when a fire destroyed the humble structure. Turning around this mis-fortune, many wonderful people donated their resources, completing an even greater Temple in 1970.

Standing 90 feet tall into the blue Maui sky, the rebuilt temple is beautiful both inside and out. Outside, hand laid solid copper sheets ensconce the Temple roof like a coat of armor; within, beautiful paintings adorn the walls and ceilings, adding to the temples' tranquility.

Amongst the beautiful grounds upon which the temple stands also lie two rare sites - the Centennial Memorial Bell Tower, and the Great Buddha.

Made of bronze and tipping the scales at approximately 1.5 tons, the Centennial Memorial Bell is currently the largest of its kind in the state of Hawaii. Inscribed on the bell are the names of the people whom have helped to make the bell available for the Mission, as well as names of the early Japanese immigrants who first instituted the Mission. While this bell is a sight to behold, it is also one to be heard; as every night at 8 p.m. it is rung 11 times in honor of Buddhist beliefs.

Not far from the Centennial Bell sits the majestic Great Buddha. The largest of it's kind outside of Japan, forged from copper and bronze, and measuring 12ft high with a weight of approximately 7000lbs, the Great Buddha was shipped across the pacific from Kyoto, Japan, to Maui to commemorate the Lahaina Jodo Mission's Centennial in 1968. Today it sits with a calming gentle gaze upon all those who pass by.

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