The Hitachi Tree

This rain tree is on Japanese television most weeks, and almost nobody watching knows it is in Honolulu. Hitachi has used it as the company emblem since 1973, with a jingle that begins "this tree, what tree", and it is famous enough in Japan that visitors arrive at Moanalua Gardens asking for it by the company's name rather than the tree's. What brought the advertising people here is obvious from the lawn. A rain tree grows outward rather than upward, and this one has spent about 130 years doing it: roughly 25 metres tall and a crown wide enough to shade some three thousand square feet of grass, held up on limbs that reach almost horizontally before turning. Stand under the middle and the canopy closes overhead like a roof. The leaves do something worth timing your visit for. The leaflets fold shut in the late afternoon and before rain, which is where the name comes from, and the light through the canopy changes completely when they do. Hawaii knows the species as the monkeypod, and that is the name on the sign. The gardens are privately owned and charge admission, which is unusual for a tree on this site and worth knowing before you drive out. The lawn around the trunk is open, so you can walk right up to it.