Hala

Today I helped clean up under the hala in the Allerton Garden where there is a collection on the west side of the river, not far from the beach. Hala is the Hawaiian name for this plant (at right) also known as Pandanus, Pu hala, Screw Pine, a member of the Pandanaceae family. The collection includes a number of different species collected from various places around the world; actually the one pictured here is not the native hala but close enough. 

Hala is easy to spot by the distinctive pineapple-like fruit, round segmented branches, and the round support roots that spread out around the base. Long sword-shaped leaves spiral out around the ends of the branches, and those leaves wither and drop as the plant grows (something like how palm fronds drop off the growing trunk of the tree). Raking and hauling those fallen leaves was this morning's work.

Raking the leaves into big piles is fairly quick but it's loading them and hauling them to the dump that takes time. In the picture of the truck you can see a pile behind the read end of the truck about to be loaded. Those long leaves have rows of little teeth-like thorns along the edges near the base (on most varieties) that scratch you when you are grabbing them for loading. Since the leaves are tough and sinewy they take a lot of room piled in the truck and it takes several loads, tying a tarp on the top to keep everything in place.

I knew that you can't eat the fruit but learned today that the nodules of the fruit were used by native people as brushes. I found one on the ground - there were thousands of them - and peeling the outside skin away sure enough it looks exactly like a paint brush. And the base is surprisingly easy to hold and feels like it would be great to paint with.

Today the river that runs through the garden was noticeably high on the banks. On a break I walked down to the beach to see why. As the photo below shows, the mouth of the river was completely blocked by beach sand. And the river was going to have to go a little higher before it was going to spill over into the ocean. We have had a high surf advisory this week and waves and ocean surge must have pushed sand up the beach blocking the river mouth. (The area where we were cleaning up the hala would be on the left side of the river from the perspective of this shot - facing north, up river, from the Lawai-Kai beach - perhaps 200 yards behind the center of the footbridge.

I have probably worked twenty or thirty days in the Allerton and seen many parts of the garden, but each time I go I find something new it seems. Most of the work is on the east side of the river but today we were west side. I took a different road walking back from the beach and off to the side of the road was a little path I hadn't noticed before leading further west - another area to explore another day.