Kokocrater Botanical Garden Photo Walk

On a beautiful weekday in January HTMC offered a photo walk at Kokocrater Botanical Garden. At 7am, it was a crisp clear morning with  temperatures a nice cool 75 degrees. Although a few participants wondered why we started at 7am, most understood that photography is all about the light. The dirt road circling the crater floor was in good condition and the rains a month prior magically transformed this normally dry area into a lush green paradise.

We stopped at the cactus garden and were dazzled by the barrel cacti and buzzing bees gathered pollen from the gooseneck agave flower. As the sunlight came over the crater rim, it reached a few of the taller cacti, and we discussed the pros and cons of photographing botanicals in direct sunlight.

We spent the majority of our time in the Hawaiian Section. It was a treat to see the Hoawa in bloom, along with the adorable tiny furry blossoms on the native morning glory vine. The wiliwili trees were standing tall, covered in leaves and we found some of their brown seed pods on the ground red seeds hiding inside. We searched the red ilima to find one bush that was blooming, A few of the ulei still had fragrant blossoms on its branches and a friendly shama thrush serenaded us with bird song while posing for our lenses. Sadly we noticed some dead palms that looked like they may have been killed by the Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle (CRB).

We continued on to the African section stopping to take in the strong smelling Moringa blossoms, the henna tree was also in bloom and the Baobab tree had plenty of furry seed pods. The ginormous yellow fever tree stretched high above us in bloom, and lastly we enjoyed the large variety of drylands palms before returning to our cars.

Mahalo to Pat Rooney for sharing his tech skills about the phone photography and to Roeland Lasure for passing along his knowledge of the Hawai’ian language. If you missed this one, stay tuned for future HTMC photowalks. Below are some of the photographs taken by the participants who were will to share.

Pat R.

Roeland L.

Debbie D.

Julie M.

Freely M.

Jeff D.

Byron L.

Diana D.