Coco nucifera The Giving Tree pg.3
Writing in 1978, Leslie Wishard explained that the collection he started in 1930 on the Kohala Coast of the Big Island had over 300 imported coconuts palms from around the tropics. From the Wishard collection, 27 varieties grouped into dwarf, medium and tall were planted at Kahanu. These included the Fijian Niumagimagi, the flat-bottomed Calabash, the diminutive Pugai, the Papua, the Trinidad and a variety called Cow’s Udder for its resemblance to a bovine teat.
Kahanu Garden Director Kamaui Aiona points to the diversity in nut size, shape and color as one of the interesting aspects of the collection.
“The Fiji Love Nut is very small, about the size of a fist, and used in love sorcery or as a container for love concoctions,” Aiona says.
Kahanu’s Wishard collection took on greater significance after the import of whole coconuts to Hawai`i was banned in a failed attempt to keep out disease and damaging plant pests.
Perhaps no one in Hawai`i knows more about the threat coconut palms face than Maui resident Philippe Visintainer, founder of Hawai`i Coconut Protectors. For more than a decade Visintainer has been battling Phytophthora katsurae, better known as coconut heart rot disease, which was first documented on Kaua`i in 1971.
Coconut heart rot is a fungal disease that causes new fronds to dry and wilt until eventually all leaves die and only the trunk remains. Visintainer says the disease runs in cycles and is currently in an actively destructive period with the north shores of Kaua`i and Maui and Puna on the Big Island especially hard hit.
