|
|
Hawaii Flower
Hawaii - land of the swaying palm trees and home of many, many beautiful flowers. One Hawaii
flower is held as their state flower. That flower is the Hibiscus. This island is known as the
garden island and is covered in lush green forest and plants of every kind. It is common
knowledge that Hawaii is famous for its orchids, but surprisingly their state flower is not an
orchid. How did this happen?
In 1923, Hawaii was still a territory at which time the ilima was adopted as its state flower.
When statehood was being anticipated in 1950, there were also two more flowers considered for
the state's flower, but the ilima won out. This flower was the flower of the ancestors and it was
always readily available. However when Hawaii became the 50th state of America they realized
that the ilima had never been changed for Hawaii's territorial flower so they decided to adopt a
flower that had for so long been considered official. So on June 6th, 1988 the pale yellow
Hibiscus was adopted as Hawaii's state flower. This flower is also the national flower of
Malaysia.
Hawaii's state flower originated in Asia and the Pacific Islands. This is the true Hibiscus
belonging to the mallow family. Some researchers suggest there were only five original species
of the tropical hibiscus that were native to Hawaii. Growers began to hybridize these when other
species came to Hawaii, which produced the huge amount of colors that we see in the islands'
Hibiscus today.
It is hard to believe that the Hibiscus was on the endangered species list of plants. This was
mainly due to the fact that nobody really wanted to grow them in their gardens and then it
became law that no one was allowed to grow them, which made the situation worse. Now the
law have been changed to permit greenhouses to not only grow the hibiscus, but to be able to sell
the seeds to other places, which in turn will assure that the hibiscus will never be lost to the
world.
|
 |
