THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 67 



deep rich green of its foliage is seen through a haze or mist 

 of rose-purple. * The blossoms, like those of other acacias, 

 are tassels consisting mostly of the conspicuous filaments. 

 A tree twenty years old may have a bole twelve of fifteen 

 feet in girth and cover with its shade a circle a hundred feet 

 in diameter. 



What the elm is to us in the northern states, the algaroba 

 (Keawe) is to the kamaaina in Honolulu. Its lank, lawless, 

 often contorted branches are too conspicuous, but they have 

 a picturesqueness of their own, and if we have been inclined 

 to take offense at these on artistic consideration, there is a 

 grace in the poise of its slender branchlets and a witchery in 

 their swaying to the breeze, and a childlike lightheartedness 

 and abandon with w'hich the tree gives itself to play with sun- 

 light and shower, with gale and zephyr that make irresistible 

 appeal to that in the human life that reflects the life universal. 



Not on sentimental grounds, only, is the algaroba a fa- 

 vorite. It is a tree easily propagated and of rapid growth. 

 Its diaphanous shade moderates the heat of the tropical sun, 

 yet permits tlie grass beneath it to grow perfectly well ; in 

 dry seasons, indeed, saves it from scorching. it supplies 

 fuel for the kitchen, fodder, in its sacdharine pods, for the 

 horses, and honey of finest quality for the bee hive. Finally 

 its roots go so deep that they find water for vigorous growth 

 where other trees can be kept alive only l)y irrigation. The 

 arid lowlands on the lee coasts of Oahu and other islands 

 have been converted from desert to forest by the algaroba 

 tree. And the parent tree from which these forests have 

 sprung still stands, not yet an old tree, near the Roman 

 Catholic Cathedral on Fort street. 



{to be conchided.) 



