Palm Trees in Hawaii Come in Many Sizes, But the Leaves Are All BIG!

September 25th, 2009

Before I moved to Hawaii, I knew what a palm tree looked like.  It was tall and skinny with big green leaves on the top, like the ones in beer commercials, or lining Hollywood streets or on Gilligan’s Island.  Now I know that is what ONE palm tree looks like, but it has many cousins.

On campus, many palm trees wear nametags.  They are tall or short.  They are sleek or shaggy.  There are many varieties of palm trees, all roughly similar.  When I see them, I’m pretty sure they are palm trees, but I’m also pretty sure they don’t fit the stereotyped image that I had in my pre-Hawaii mind.

I spent lot of my first year here thinking, "who knew?" and never more often than when finding new varieties of palm tree.  It was a revelation that this term describes a class of objects, not a single instance.  I am fortunate to spend time on the Manoa campus of the University of Hawaii.  There is a special brochure for the many special plants and gardens on campus.  One garden near Hawaii Hall is devoted to palm trees.

The brochure explains "many of these palms were planted in the early part of the 20th century by botany professor Dr. Joseph F. C Rock who envisioned the campus as an outdoor classroom."   The brochure describes many other wonderful gardens on campus.  It is published by the Manoa Chancellor’s Office.

I might have encountered the wide variety of palm trees in other places in Hawaii.  But I wouldn’t have known what the palms are called or had such ready access to variety without the campus collection.  I don’t really know much about Dr. Rock, but I’d like to thank him for providing the visual display that I pass daily.  The Manoa campus is truly an outdoor classroom; enhanced by Dr. Rock’s many palm tree varieties.

It amuses me to see the way palm leaves are collected each morning by grounds keeping crews.  These leaves are HUGE!  They only look small because they are very high up.  One time, a palm leaf was lying beside a car and they were the same length!  On early morning walks across campus, I watch the daily collection of fallen leaves and the pink puffy clouds behind the leaves still on their various palm tree hosts.

Posted by Cindy Scheopner  Follow me on Twitter @Scheopner

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Entry Filed under: In General, Oahu