Ohia Tree

[Anna]

Dave,
The Ohia's in Hawaiian Acres are currently bloomed - at least in our neck of Hawaiian Acres. They seem to have just bloomed full within the last week or so. The ones on our property are nice and red.
The Ohia tree is one of the first trees to grow in dried lava - as their roots grow deep and break up the rock and begin to make soil. The Ohia's make way for other vegetation to grow.
Aloha - Anna

Peace - Anna

[HADave]

Aloha Anna, far out!, Mahalo for posting about those unique trees. I'll bet the added contrast is just beautiful. Do you see the occaisional Honeycreeper or are all the blooms to high to really notice the birds?

HADave

[Lee G]

Dave,
If you have the 80 footer's on your land and you can't put your arms around the trunk then you probably have old growth trees the ones that first took root after the last lava flow in Hawaiian Acre / Orchidland about 400 years ago. They are very slow growing trees and I can attest to their hardness, I wanted to climb one of our big Ohia's in the back of our property to get a bird's eye view of the land and get above the thick bush so I cut up some 2x4's and grabbed some 16D nails and hiked thru the pig trails and found the perfect tree so I started to nail the 2x4 into the tree and I bent every nail hsd to go back and get more, finally made a nice ladder up the side of the tree and the view up there is so beautiful for all you can see just native forest nothing else. Another story about the Ohia about 6 months ago I noticed one of our Big Ohia's had the yellow Lehua blossom it looked soo cool amongst all the red ones since then I have found 2 more yellow Lehua Ohia trees on our property, Right now the red ones are blooming but the yellow ones not yet. I read somewhere they are 10,000 to 1 Red to yellow.
Lee

[HADave]

Lee, Thanks for that post, We can't wait to see them up close and personal. On our last trip there we were spellbound by the beauty of so many flowering things, Your trip up the Ohia tree in the back of your property made me think of this. www.ohiatreehouses.shutterfly.com The rest of the paragraph reads

"The work took 4 months using standard framing techiques. They anchored each to the trunks of tall Ohia trees with 20 to 25 foot posts resting on the ground. To allow for movement of the tree, they left a 10" inch gap between the the roof and the trunk. The gap is covered by an expandable cone-shaped piece of flashing that is attached to the trunk and overhangs the roof opening by 6 inches.
The houses are built in typical Hawaiian cottage style with wraparound lanais, and they are the best furnished treehouses I have ever seen, with iron clawfoot bathtubs, high-tank toilets, hot and cold running water, centrally plumbed gas lanterns, and queen size bunk beds. Each has a stove and refrigerator until the building department ordered them removed for fear that someone might move into the houses permanently."

If I were 20 years younger or my grandsons were 20 years older we would be building one. I pray my grandsons come one day and fulfill this dream how awesome this would be to look out over the rainforest to the ocean. Thanks Lee once again for reminding me of this picture.

Pretty cool that it is actually on The Big Island has anyone ever seen them on the slopes of Hualalai?

HADave

PS Anyone interested in this book the title is Treehouses, the art of living out on a limb by Peter Nelson there are others from Hawaii in the book.



Edited by - HADave on 03/04/2006 14:30:04