Plants for Fragrance

[Kelena]

What kind of plant is the hala? Is it a type of fern?

[JerryCarr]

Glen, I think the hala is a pandanus or screw pine. They grow wild all over Puna, and there are some groves of very large ones in Waa Waa.

Cheers,
Jerry

[missydog1]

Jerry, I love paklan too, amazing fragrance that differs from all the others.

Its name is Michelia champaca, and it is part of the magnolia family. The only tree I like better for fragrance is michelia doltsopa, which grows in Northern California, but haven't seen it here.

Nancy, where would I find moonflower or its seeds?
Sounds like a plant I want to acquire!

[Hotzcatz]

Plant it Hawaii has Pak lan and I think I've seen it at Garden Exchange and at the plant sales.

The citrus trees have a really lovely scent as well as tasty fruit later. For nice smelling flowers, you could try tuber rose, that's a lovely scent. I also plant roses which smell nice, although those have to be selected for scent or all you will get will be flowers. There is one called Healani, I think it's called which is a lovely scented smaller red rose which doesn't have very many thorns.

[nanasohana]

Moonflower seeds are available in the seed displays at most big boxes, unless they have put the displays away till spring. If you would like some, I am harvesting seeds from my vines and would think they will sprout just fine.

[nanasohana]

Kathy, if you came by a late afternoon, you could see how the flowers look also.

[Carey]

Glen, hala is also called the pineapple tree, as its' fruit looks much like a pineapple (but not a juicy fruit, made up of hard segments that are very chewy & slighty sweet)
there are some really cool lava prints of the hala fruit in Kaimu from the 1977 flow, along the walk to the beach

[janeadams]

Allen,

Sorry -- I misspelled the name. It's Luculia, but i am not sure which of several varieties we have. We obtained the original cuttings from a friend in Volcano about 18 months ago. They are now about 3' high and will bloom soon. Gets to be small tree-size shrub.

I echo the Michelia comment -- way cool tree! We had a Himalayan Champaca in bay area, but it did not survive a nasty freeze one winter.

Jane

[hpp4me]

quote:

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Note about plumeria -- they don't like our damp areas much. rust is a constant problem, but the aroma is heavenly.

Jane

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Jane, plumeria does do well in the lower, drier elevations of Puna though, right?

[janeadams]

HPP4me,

could be it would do well where you describe. We had them on Maui in Haiku, and they did OK, but languish here. Too bad -- lots of really super varieties that we bought specifically for propagation. We got around 60" of rain in Haiku, and more like 120" - 140" here at 1050 feet.

jane