This rain tree is on Japanese television most weeks, and almost nobody watching knows it is in Honolulu.
Photo: KeithH (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Rain Tree
Samanea saman
The rain tree gets its name from what it does at the end of the day: the leaflets fold shut at dusk and again when a storm is coming, so the rain falls straight through a canopy that looked solid an hour earlier. We map 7 of them, in 5 cities.
In Hawaii nobody calls it that. There it is the monkeypod, and it only arrived around 1847, which is why the Gulick-Rowell tree in Waimea cannot be the 200 years old that local tradition insists on, however good the story about the Indian prince is. Kauai's other one was put in by the shopkeeper whose store it still shades. Oahu's is on Japanese television most weeks as Hitachi's emblem, and almost nobody watching knows it stands in Honolulu. Singapore's spreads over a public stairway out of Fort Canning Park, so everyone taking those steps walks under it whether they look up or not.
Oahu
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 clos...
Singapore
This rain tree spreads its umbrella-shaped canopy directly over a public stairway that carries walkers out of Fort Canning Park onto Hill Street, so almost everyone who takes those steps passes und...
Photo: Wzhkevin (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Kauai
The man who planted this tree ran the shop in front of it.
Local tradition says this monkeypod is 200 years old and arrived as a gift from an Indian prince, the first of its kind planted on the Garden Isle.
Martinique
In 1902 Mount Pelee erupted and wiped out almost the whole population of Saint-Pierre, a few kilometres down the coast.
Photo: Jean-Baptiste Barret (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Maui
Eight and a third metres round, and nobody has written down when it was planted.
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