Flora

One of the things I love about Hawaii is the adundance of beautiful flowers. They are everywhere -- and I'm so jealous of people who have gorgeous flowering shrubs or trees in their yards. (We just have palm trees.) I read somewhere that many of Hawaii's plants and flowers are actually not native but were brought here by settlers. Interesting! Apparently Hawaii doesn't have all that many native species. In fact, there are only two mammals native to Hawaii, the monk seal (which I really hope to see in the wild here at some point) and the hoary bat. But back to the topic at hand: below are pictures of some common Hawaiian flowers as well as a few really neat, not-as-common ones.

This is my favorite flower that I've come across so far. We passed it when we were driving up Mount Tantalus and I made Jarrod stop the car so I could run back and take a picture of it. Despite tons of Googling, I can't figure out what it's called, but I think it's so gorgeous!

Hibiscus -- these are EVERYWHERE and come in an amazing array of colors.

Ginger flower. These are semi-common. I think they're used a lot in landscaping and gardening.

Canna -- this reminds me of blown glass.

Hawaiian cactus. (I don't know why this picture insisted on turning sideways -- sorry.)

Bougainvillea -- these flowering bushes are extremely common and come in all sorts of colors ranging from light orange to bright pink to purple. I loved them so much I bought a small plant for our front porch.

Bird of paradise. These are also fairly common.

One flower I really wanted to include is the plumeria, but I didn't have a good picture of one. The common ones are white with a yellow center and grow on trees. (There are some similar flowers in colors like pink and purple, and I assume those are also in the plumeria family.) They smell DIVINE and are very popular in leis. My neighbor has a plumeria tree in her yard, so I might have to sneak over and take some pictures!