I flew to Oahu on December 4th and spent a week there with my friend Linda. We stayed on the windward side of the island in a beautiful little house.
There were spectacular views and lovely grounds from this little Indonesian cottage.
We found a lot of wildlife at the house, too–lots of birds, including wild chickens, mynas, shamas, egrets, and bulbils. There were lots of frogs around the little pond, and big snails came out at night. I saw bright pink apple snail eggs on foliage in the pond, too. We had geckos in the house and outside. There were guppies in the pond, too, so I dipped some out into a fishbowl and kept them on the table inside for our stay there. One day, I caught a gecko eyeing the guppies with suspicion.
We took an excursion with amazing friend, Dean, to the Foster Botanical Garden in Honolulu. As many times as I have been to Honolulu, I had never been to this garden. Surprisingly, Dean had never been there, either, and he’s lived on Oahu most of his life!
We saw some amazing plants and trees in this garden. Highlights were the big trees, including the Kapoks and the Baobob, and the Quibo. The palms were great, especially the Talipot Palm, which you will see blooming below. The “baby” Talipot doesn’t have a trunk, but is huge and has hooked thorns. The conservatory had myriad treasures, including my first Amorphophalus titanum sighting (not in bloom, but the leaf was impressive enough!), and a giant anthurium, orchids, bromeliads, and more.
I was working on college coursework the entire trip, but one day had some free time to go to the beach. Of course, that ended up being the rainiest, windiest day! Here are some photos from that excursion. The plant is an interesting beach pea we found, and the cat is a feral cat at a fun restaurant we ate at.
I had brought a book to read about the paintings and travels of Marianne North in the 1800’s. She was an amazing, prolific artist. Dean bought me a book on the William Hillebrand, who founded the Foster Botanical Garden, and who had a major impact on Hawaii’s flora and fauna. It turns out that Hillebrand had met North during their travels. In addition, she had painted a blooming Talipot palm, which is what we also saw at Foster–it was blooming for the first time after 51 years there!
