spurs. There are several rather steep drop-oils along the 
ridge, but they are all wooded, and can be descended with- 
out difficulty. 
The trail finally passes through dense thickets of staghorn 
fern (wire fern) which may have somewhat overgrown it. 
The ridge ends between the two branches of the Kahana 
Stream, near a forest of mountain apple trees. 
It is by this time nearly dark, and you must pass rapidly 
down the stream, wading or following the shore, until you 
reach a deserted grass house on the edge of the stream, and 
visible for some distance. At this house you can spend a 
fairly comfortable night, and from there follow the good trail 
that leads on into Kahana village. 
The descent from the cool and cloudy summit ridge of the 
Koolaus to the warm coral beach of Kahana is especially in- 
teresting to the botanist, because of the variety of plant zones 
through which one passes. 
On the summit is a dense covering of scrubby vegetation — 
tough, woody, slow-growing, small-leaved, inconspicuous- 
flowered ; exposed portions twisted and distorted by the 
eternal trade winds. The soil is never dry; by night, and 
commonly by day, the cool fogs enswathe the dripping peaks, 
and this cool humidity has produced manifold changes in the 
plants that cling to these precipitous pali tops. 
Descending the ridge one encounters the familiar maile, 
festooning the path. Underfoot, and occasionally forming 
green embankments, is the ‘Tvawai iole,'*’ much used for 
Christmas decorations. The “ie ie” vine, cable like, and 
twisting into stout and entangling networks, often presents 
a formidable barrier to one unarmed with a cane-knife. It 
is only rivalled in exasperating qualities by the unmention- 
able wire fern. Whoever is wise will skirt the margins of its 
jungles, rather than brave its lacerating depths. 
Kahana stream flows through forests of mountain apple 
trees, the individuals so close together that they are pole-like, 
^and bare below, in striking contrast to the sprawling hau or 
wide-armed and robust kukui. 
Here also are long grassy ridges, on whose lower slopes 
are groves of hala trees, with spiny leaves and prop roots. 
In the moistest places are groves of wild bananas, clumps 
of gigantic-leaved api, and farther down, isolated taro patches. 
For a considerable distance the trail passes through or 
along extensive hau jungles. Then swampy meadows, lush 
with rank grass, and finally the shining coral sands, upon 
whose fair exoanse the foamy waves forever sing the droon- 
ing song of the sea. 
