The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1904-02-26

petite for color. Even without this, he
may have all through the summer
months almost surfcit of color. A
neighbor has perhaps all arbor covered
with Bougainvillca vine. When the
blossoning time comes, the deep green
of its foliage will be flecked at first with
a ruddy purple--more accurately ma
genta-but soon the patches of color will
spread and become continent, until the
| whole arbor is mass of purple. 1t
seems like an experiment i'll decorative
art belonging to primitive and bar
baric stage You are not sorry that
nature has not yet repeated it, There
are varieties of Bougainvilea however,
of a more pleasing color--salmon, brick
red. even an orange scarlet. What is
remarkable i'll all is that it is not the
flowers at all that are thus colored. 1t
is only the bracts that enclose the in
conspicuous flower clusters. The plant
is of the same family as the four o'clock,
in which, botanias tell us that the col
ored part is calyx, not corolla.
| Another vine often trained over
porches and barns, Bignonia, but TN
like the Trumpet Creeper makes the
Bougainvillea cnvious when it puts on
its gala dress. Here again is solid col
or. but no longer the suggestions of the
dye vat 1t is the color Of living flame
not uniform in tint, but full of lights
and shades such as belong to veritabe
| flame, and the plant wears this gorgeous
attire wholly concealing the every day
garment of green which it covers, for
| weeks at time, and more than once in
| the year.
hat lace tk.,
Stephanotis, whose fragrant clusters in
| their season transform the trellis into a
snow bank
The same snow effect is produced
when the ungainly heshy stems of the
| nightblooming cereus (Cereus triquetra)
which are piled up on stone fences, max
clothe themselves, as they do once in
three or four weeks, through the sum-
iner months, with their giant lily bios
SONS. There is one of those hedges at
Oahu College, continuous stretch of |
two hundred yards, on which it is
common thing to see two thousand bios
SONS at onceLsometimes there have been
three or four times that number OF
course this snow melts under the morn
ing sun. By nine O'Clock in the morn
iiiS iiiS Sioiy 10 uSpditSu, dltllouSi lllC
following night may see it restored. The
plant blossoms two nights in succession,
with perhaps few belated flowers for
the third night, or few that anticipate
the general bossoming-then there will
be rest while new crop of buds
develop. The flowers are provided each
with a score of stigmas and thousand
stamens-l have counted them more than
ono al t1,n,y taI 1,,1
of honey bees and by other insects, and
Only twice in thirty years, | believe, has
fruit appeared, very few each time,
on the hedge | have just spoken of.
But trees vie with vines and number
plants in decking themselves in lively
colors. With us in the temperate zone
the poisoning time of tree is of
necessity short and it must come gen
orally not later than June or early July
orally white, the tulip tree, Judas tree,
and few Rosaceae forming the princi-
pal exceptions. Among tropical trees
the colors are often brilliant, and the
poisoning season may be greatly pro-
longed, and trees of the same species do
not necessarily put forth their blossoms
lilC N'.lilC NCSh VI lHC SdHiG lllblllil. |
1t is trees OF the Cassia family Caesal-
pineae, especially that light up with color
the spacious grounds about Honolulu
residences. 4ellows are perhaps the
most common. The species of cassia
er than trees have all yellow flowers,
and many OF them are perennial bloom
ers. The Caesalpnias are sometimes
CHI Loo ~, l. |
SONS being commonly yellow. A very
beautiful tree of this genus is the yell
low poincana, massive head of finely
cut foliage; the ample flower clusters
giving place to purple pods so numer-
Gus as to give the whole tree their rud-
dy hue. .
The Bauhinias, sturdy climbers or ,
small trees, remarkable for their two
lobed leaves (whence famed for the
two brothers Bauhin), give preference 8
to pink and red rather than to yellow.
In the St. Thomas tree, the petals of the {
snowy flowers have crimson spots on a
paler ground, having been sprinkled ac-
cordlng to tradition with the blood of |
the martyred saint.
Very conspicuous throughout the
summer months is the tree known in
Honolulu as the golden shower, or more
prosaically as the pudding stick tree
to medical men familiar as Purging cas-
STA, Cathartocarpus fistula. The foliage
is comparatively scanty, consisting OF
pinnate leaves with large entire leaflets.
The cylindrical, deep brown pods, fifteen
inches or more in length and three
fourths of an inch in diameter, are rath-
er ornamental than otherwise, as they
sway with every breeze. In spring the
buds appear in dropping panicles, and
then for four months there is con-
tnuous succession OF the pure primrose i,
yellow, fragrant blossoms that justify !
the popular name of the tree. The petals
which are OF delicate, rich color, are Z
really coarse in texture; this explains ,
MhY they last as they do ten DAYS or a | ]