Wednesday, January 28, 1998
What ever happened to the first kiawe tree to grow in Hawaii, said to be the parent of all other kiawe trees here? Seed from Paris
spawned isle kiaweIt was cut down, after it arose from a seed brought from the king's garden in Paris and planted here in 1828. It became a great tree shading Our Lady of Peace Cathedral between Bishop Street and what is now Fort Street Mall. The stump of that tree remains on the Cathedral grounds, on the mauka side.
"The seed was brought from the king's garden in Paris by Father Alexis Bachelot, first Catholic missionary to Hawaii," an adjoining plaque says. "(It) was called 'kiawe' in Hawaiian, and this is the parent of all the kiawe trees."
Beatrice H. Krauss, longtime University of Hawaii research affiliate at Lyon Arboretum, remembers Hawaii's original kiawe tree. "I remember it as a child being a fairly decent tree," she said, adding: "Some of the scenes of the movie 'Hawaii' were filmed at Waianae and Nanakuli with kiawe trees in the background, and the time setting for the scenes was prior to the introduction of kiawe trees here. Of course, there were no kiawe trees here at that time."
The entire plain of Honolulu, once bare, became covered with kiawe trees, she said. Tree cover resulted as the hardy species spread. Cattle were grazed among the trees to enable them to eat the sugary kiawe pods or beans.
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