Poet, botanist, birders, librarians, and educators….Yes, that’s quite a line-up of front stage performers and they happen to be the company I am keeping in Maui!

There are six of us exploring this green oasis of an island together.  It’s an exciting group to be with. Everyone has his or her area of expertise and so our island time is also a great opportunity to learn from one another.

Randall is a botanist. From him, I am learning so much about trees and the lush flora around me. Sounds odd, but I had never heard the term “tree scar” until I heard it from him. Now the expression seems to be a common description, a part of being in the tree world. Below you have a great example of a tree scar I observed at Ahihi Bay. The lowermost fronds of this tree eventually die and new fronds grow above it.  The dead fronds drop off and leave a scar in the tree.  Tree scars create patterns and can be very beautiful like the cordate scar below.  The tree was covered with this heart-shaped pattern.

We went to the historic town of Lahaina yesterday.  We took two cars and it was decided that when we arrived in Lahaina, we’d simply all meet at the Banyan Tree.  I was secretly wondering how we would find the specific banyan tree rendez-vous.  Really, I need not have been at all concerned about finding it. The banyan tree, our meeting point in Lahaina,  is the largest banyan tree in the United States.  This Banyan Tree was planted in 1873 and now covers an entire acre!  It’s super hard to miss! And it is quite impressive.

The banyan tree spreads by way of aerial roots! The aerial roots grow thick and then eventually reach the ground.  The original massive trunk is in the middle of the park and there are a total of 16 major trunks all belonging to the parent banyan tree.  Below you can see a detail of the famed Banyan Tree.

While roaming around Lahaina, the old whaling village which hit the height of its whaling boom in the mid 1800s, Rick and I went to the Plantation Museum.  We also found a great bookstore and, thanks to Kelley and Jack, we discovered a beautiful art studio featuring the art of Vladimir Kush  

Kush, a surrealist painter, sculptor, and jewelry maker, creates a metaphorical and mythical world filled with dragonflies, butterflies, ladders, water, trees, and human figures. His work seduces you to enter a creative, delightful, sometimes disturbing, always wondrous world of clouds, animals, eggs, embryonic forms, butterfly windmills, and banana hammocks.

While ambling about, Rick and I also found the historic Pioneer Hotel, now a Best Western.  It’s been around since 1900 and overlooks Lahaina harbor and the Pacific Ocean. We sat in the quiet inner courtyard, enjoying the breezy shade and marveling at an antique seafaring canoe.  Below is a detail from the carved masthead of the Hawaiian outrigger canoe displayed in the Pioneer Hotel courtyard.  The photo captures one eye of a don’t-mess-with-me creature fearlessly facing the sea and leading the way.

Enormous philodendron leaves:

Below: a statue in front of the Pioneer Hotel. This fellow demonstrates how your ears and nose keep growing as you age.

Our birder Kelley helped us identify birds at the Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge.  Kealia is the year-round home for two of Hawaii’s native and endangered waterbirds: the Hawaiian coot with its gorgeous white forehead and the Hawaiian stilt. We were fortunate to see both.

The boardwalk was lined with great explanatory panels. This panel has a painting of a Hawaiian coot in the foreground.

Beach alongside the Wildlife Refuge:

After the wildlife refuge, we hiked around Iao Needle.

There are no trails leading to the Iao Needle.  This photo was taken from an observatory deck.  The hike we went on led us along a river with boulders and swimming holes, rushing rapids, and lush vegetation. Below is from the information panels:

The traditional name for this 2,250 foot high peak is Kuka’emoku. The peak is known as the phallic stone of Kanaloa, Hawaiian god of the ocean.

During periods of warfare, the peak was used as a lookout by warriors. It was here that some of the Maui warriors retreated from the forces of Kamehameha I during the Battle of Kepaniwai.