The Nuuanu Valley Monkeypod

Someone has wedged a rock under one of the low branches here, presumably to help visitors reach it, because the rain trees of Nuuanu Valley Park, known locally as monkeypods, grow their canopy close enough to the ground that children climb, sit and walk along the branches themselves. The largest carries a trunk 585 centimetres round, registered by the City and County of Honolulu as an Exceptional Tree and rated in excellent health. The rain tree, Samanea saman, is native to Central and South America and was brought to Hawaii as shade. It grows fast and wide rather than tall, which is exactly what makes its low, spreading branches so easy to reach. Nuuanu Valley Park itself sits a short drive up Pali Highway from downtown Honolulu, an ordinary public playground and picnic ground with its own parking lot, and a second Exceptional Tree, an enormous banyan more than thirteen metres round, grows in the same park. No age or planting record survives, and girth alone cannot fix one honestly for a fast-growing species like this. Free, open, no ticket, and the shade is the point.