Flora and Fauna of the Big Island

Here is a sampling of the different flowers we saw in Hawaii. It is so fun to see flowers I've never seen before! Some of them I vaguely remember from my Floral Design class when we studied tropical arrangements, and some I know just because I've heard of them, like the plumeria—but some are still a mystery to me!

Some tall tropical flowers. That top left one looks like an ear of corn! Top right is Bird of Paradise. Bottom right and bottom middle are two types of plumeria, I think.

Top row: Some curly ferns unfurling. Leaves that look fake.

Middle row: Monstera! I don't know the others.

Bottom row: hibiscus, maybe another hibiscus, and ??

Some beautiful birds

I don't know the orange one. Middle is bougainvilla. And a bunny leaf!

We bought a cacao pod just so we could look at it. Sadly, you aren't allowed to bring them back to the U.S., but I would have liked to show the other kids! We learned about cacao in our Chocolate Unit a few years ago, but we've only seen pictures and models of the beans before.

The other long bean is called "Ice Cream Bean." It is so weird! You cut it open and take the little beans out and eat the soft white pulp around them. It didn't really taste like ice cream to me. Maybe more like cotton candy.

These long braided whip-tails were really cool—like friendship bracelets or lanyards. They were the needles (?) of huge trees that looked like some kind of pine or evergreen. Each of the branches on that huge tree is one of these neat braided tails!

And here is a beautiful gecko for good measure!