I’ve decided to share my five top favourite exotic tropical trees and shrubs in Honolulu, and I’m going to limit myself to ones I see within walking distance of where I’m staying in Waikiki. These are parks and garden landscaping plants, none of them native to Hawaii. I have to do this in multiple postings, seems to be a 10-file limit. Majidea zanguebarica My top maybe all-time favourite is Majidea zanguebarica, common name Velvet Pearls or Velvet Seed. There are two trees on a condo property at the sidewalk just off one of the three major Waikiki streets. It has finished blooming and the seed pods are a showy yellow. Of the same trees at the Honolulu Zoo, one is a smaller, easier to photograph tree, and its pods were mostly fully red-coloured and open by November, showing off the blue velvet seeds. Dombeya burgessiae 'Seminole' The next shrub, Dombeya, is also at the Honolulu Zoo. I figured out the ID by querying “Malvaceae with inflorescence”, based on the leaf shape and the radiating bits of the stigma,but it didn’t become Malvaceae until Sterculiaceae was moved into that family; if that hadn’t happened, I might still not have an ID. This has upright inflorescences, and I’m calling it Dombeya burgessiae 'Seminole', as I saw that on a National Tropical Botanical Garden page. Lots of plants at the zoo have labels, but mostly they’re ones I already know.
