The man who planted this tree ran the shop in front of it. Howard Yamamoto's family took over the Koloa general store in the early 1920s, and he put a monkeypod in the ground on the Waikomo Stream side of the building, back when the water was still called Koloa Stream. The trunk now measures just under seven metres round, and the county register, which lists it as an exceptional tree, rates its condition as good. The store it shades was built in 1898 and rebuilt in 1983, so the tree has already outlived one version of the building it was planted behind. It is the shade in the yard where Old Koloa Town does its business, and it has been that since the shop was still a shop. Its age is the one thing the sources argue about. The store's own history dates the planting to the early 1920s, which makes the tree about a hundred years old. A tourist photography site says 130 and confuses it with a famous monkeypod on Oahu, which is a different tree on a different island. We have gone with the store, on the grounds that the store was there.
5330 Koloa Road, Koloa, HI 96756 (behind the former Yamamoto Store site, Waikomo Stream side)You can recognise it by the trunk, just under 7 metres round, shading the yard behind the old Yamamoto Store. It stands on the Waikomo Stream side of the building in Old Koloa Town.
Free, standing in the open courtyard/streetside area of Old Koloa Town behind the historic Yamamoto Store building
In Old Koloa Town, walkable from anywhere on Koloa Road
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.
- In the official register: Hawaii Exceptional Trees register (Hawaii DLNR, via data.honolulu.gov), no. 1149
- oldkoloa.com
- fotospot.com
- Hawaii Exceptional Trees register (data.honolulu.gov), register_id 1149
