Hawaii's Flowering Trees

Flowering Trees Dominate the Kauai Summer Landscape

Shower Trees in full bloom in August. What a sight!

Here’s another terrific and beautiful post by my darling wife, Dorothy Hinshaw Patent.

We’re being gobsmacked by year round gorgeosity, and flowering trees are the latest stars. Every season has its specialty, but mid to late summer tops them all.

Take the crazy octopus tree, with its long arms bearing bright red blossoms.

Look closely about halfway up the tree to see the projecting blossom arms.

Vying with it for the title of eye-catching champ, the spectacular flower clusters of royal poinciana glow like fire as the sun shines through the crimson petals.

This tree is just stunning. The red flowers pulsate with life.

Meanwhile, a Hawaiian favorite for aromatic leis, Plumarias unobtrusively evolve from bare twigs to promising buds, then bursts forth with graceful blossoms ranging from pure white to pink to gold.

Gorgeous yellow plumeria flowers. A favorite that many women clip to their hair.

And here are the pink plumeria blossoms. They have their own special wow factor!

No season is flowerless aloft. The champion winter bloomer by far is the African tulip tree—crowned by orange-red cup-shaped blossoms. You can enjoy them dotting the treetops year around, but winter seems to be a time of special abundance.

Blooming African Tulip Tree enlivens the landscape.They are also called flame trees.

This is just a sampling of flowering trees on the islands, and I’ve saved my favorite for last—the summer-blooming Rainbow Shower Tree, the official tree of Honolulu, that also thrives here on Kaua’i.

Imagine a whole street lined with these trees. The flowers always take my breath away.

Gorgeous dense clusters of blossoms dominate the tree so that you can hardly see it has leaves. Every flower has a unique pattern of yellow/white/pink/red on each petal. There’s nothing else like it.

In Montana, where I lived for 50 years, a lovely fragrant spring show of purple and white lilacs, quickly followed by brightly blooming fruit trees like apples and apricots.  But beyond the abundance of spring, the show was pretty much over. What can I say, but yes, I love a Montana spring, with its promise of juicy sweet apricots in summer and crispy tangy apples in fall, but give me the Hawaiian abundance of flowers brightening the days year-around.

Please feel free to share this post. Your flower-loving friends will thank you.