The Yamamoto Monkeypod

about 100 yearsRain Tree

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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.

Been here? Worth the visit?

The button above opens directions in your maps app. In Old Koloa Town, walkable from anywhere on Koloa Road

Species
Rain Tree (Samanea saman)
Age estimate
about 100 years
Location
5330 Koloa Road, Koloa, HI 96756 (behind the former Yamamoto Store site, Waikomo Stream side) (Old Koloa Town)
Access
Free, standing in the open courtyard/streetside area of Old Koloa Town behind the historic Yamamoto Store building
Getting there
In Old Koloa Town, walkable from anywhere on Koloa Road

Trees nearby

The Koloa Baobab · 590 m awayThe Tree Tunnel (Maluhia Road)roughly 115 years · 5.1 km awayThe Kanoa Banyan Treeabout 140 years · 11.9 km away
Curious what else is standing in Kauai? See all 6 remarkable ancient trees in Kauai or find out what the oldest tree in Kauai is. It is a Rain Tree; see every rain tree on the site.
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This page was researched from a distance. If you know this tree, you know things we do not: the species, the age, the size, whether the photo shows the right tree, or that it is gone. Every field on this page can be corrected.

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