Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Native Hawaiian Garden

The Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden is a 15 acre garden featuring 200 species of plants and their uses. These were all plants that grew on traditional farms and native forests prior to Captain Cook's arrival.




While this garden did not exhibit the overall beauty found at the Hawaiian Tropical Botanical Garden, it was exceptionally well labeled and educational in its own right. Plant names were provided in Hawaiian and Latin, and included uses for all the plants. The other label that they included; which furthered my understanding of the flora in HI, was whether the plant was:
Endemic - found no where else in the world. A remarkable 90% of HI plant material originally fell in this category.
Indigenous - Found as Natives elsewhere in the World. Perhaps arrived here through the seas and winds, or
Polynesian Introduced - Brought by Polynesian settlers as necessities to their culture either for food, medicine, ceremony, etc.

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