252 NATURAL HISTORY OF HAWAII. 



moil ill Huiiululu gardens. The natives find many uses for it that must be men- 

 tioned elsewhere. Its leaves are articles of daily use, however, especially as a 

 wrapping for fresh fish in the markets. 



Still another shrub that is a favorite for hedges in the city is the beautifully 

 variegated FJiijIhnilli us rosio-pictus. The leaves are small, alternate, and entire 

 in two rows on small branchlets, so that they appear like pinnate leaves. They 

 vary in color, being variously mottled with pink and red as well as with white 

 and green. 



]\Iost of Hawaii's visitors who come from northern climes for their first visit 

 to the tropics are greatly surprised to find the Oleander,^^ variously called rose- 

 bay, rose-laurel or South Sea rose, growing in beautiful ever-blooming hedges 

 ten to twenty feet in height. This old-fashioned evergreen shrub, so common as a 

 hot-house pant, flourishes here with but little care and blossoms in various 

 shades of pink, white and cream color. It is not generally known that all parts 

 of the Oleander are poisonous, and that there are authentic records of people 

 who have died ^rom eating the flowers ; death has also occurred from using its 

 wood as skewers in cooking meat. 



A beautiful tree frequenty seen in gardens about the islands is locally 

 known as the "bestill-tree," owing to the fact that its large, slender, daintily 

 poised, shining green leaves are set in motion by the slightest breeze. It is also 

 called the yellow Oleander, on account of its golden, funnel-shaped flowers that 

 are further characterized by having the edge of the corolla made up of a series 

 of over-lapping lobes. The flowers and the foliage suggest the typical Oleander — 

 to which it is distantly related — and makes the name not inappropriate even 

 though it is not a true Neruim. This common species (Thcveia neyiifolia) is else- 

 where known as the quashy-quasher, and is widely distributed in the tropics, 

 particularly in the West Indies and tropical America. The wood is hard and 

 even-grained, and its seeds yield the fixed oil called exile-oil. The genus belongs 

 to the great order Apocynacece, which includes in its numerous tribes such well- 

 known and widely-differing ornamental i)lants as the Vinca, Oleander, Alla- 

 manda, and the Plumieria. 



Pandanus. 



Several species of Pandanus or screw-pine are found growing, in old gar- 

 dens, some forms attaining great size. They are remarkable for their stilt-like 

 aerial roots, and the perfect spiral arrangement of their long sword-like leaves, 

 which are held aloft on a few scarred, naked branches. The aerial roots gradu- 

 ally lift the trunk out of the ground, but at the same time anchor it firmly in all 

 directions. Two species are common, one of which is a variegated form. There 

 is not space here to go deeply into the question of varieties, for there are as many 

 as fifty species known and many of them are in cultivation in Honolulu gardens. 



The splendid specimens of Hercules' club, or angelica tree,^*^ commonly 



35 A'ertMm Oleander. '"'^ Aralia spinosa. 



