Almost none of Hawaii's native lowland forest is still standing.
Ancient Trees in Kalopa State Recreation Area
Almost none of Hawaii's native lowland forest is still standing, and about a hundred acres of it are here.
That is the whole reason this park holds trees like these: they are what an old forest produces when nobody interferes with it, and every species on this page grows nowhere else on earth. Six of the trees we map stand on the marked Kalopa Nature Trail, a loop of just over a kilometre. The largest is an ohi'a lehua, 4.39 metres round and about 26 metres tall, rated in excellent health when the state last measured it. Beside it are two kopiko 'ula that make no sense for their species, a slim coffee relative that rarely clears 13 metres: one is 3.26 metres round, and we have found no larger one recorded anywhere. The park is free and open from seven in the morning until eight at night.
All 6 stand in Hawaii, which maps 6 remarkable trees in total.
Hame is a small tree.
This tree stands about 13 metres, which is as tall as its species has ever been documented to grow, and it does it on a trunk 82 centimetres round.
A kopiko 'ula is a slender thing, a coffee relative that rarely clears 13 metres and almost never gets thick.
This is the largest tree on the loop: 4.39 metres round, about 26 metres tall, and rated in excellent health when the state last measured it.
Pick a lehua blossom, the saying goes, and it will rain before you get home, because the flower and the tree that carries it were lovers the volcano goddess parted.
Opening times and visitor information: Hawaii's Division of State Parks.
More parks worth the walk: every park we map. Or explore by city: Brussels · Pamplona · Lisbon · Barcelona · Oahu · Amsterdam