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Natural History

Naupaka
(Scaevola spp.)


Naupaka kahakai, beach naupaka, (Scaevola sericea) is a sprawling succulent shrub a few feet high that grows along many of the island beaches. It is one of Hawaii's most common seaside plants and grows throughout tropical and subtropical Pacific and the Indian Ocean coasts.

It has numerous intertwining branches with bunches of glossy, oval leaves. Its whitish, purple-streaked flowers look like they are half-flowers and the clusters of round white, spongy fruits were called "huahekilii" or hailstones by the Hawaiians.

There is also a finer-leaved relative called naupaka kuahiwi or mountain naupaka (S. chamissoniana) with the same, distinctive looking half-flowers growing in the upland forests. The dwarf naupaka (S. coriacea), which is also called the "false jade plant," is an adaptation peculiar to Hawaii and is considered to be one of the rarest plants in the world.

It is believed that the beach naupaka originally arrived in Hawaii by water, probably from Australia. The fruits float easily and are resistant to salt water, so the plants have spread along coastlines throughout the Pacific and Southeast Asia where they continue to thrive.

Strong shallow root systems allow naupaka to tolerate shifting sands, and to penetrate the small cracks and tiny holes in barren lava and grab hold. Its fleshy, wax-coated leaves keep stored water from evaporating quickly. Silvery hairs on the leaves reflect heat and keep the hot sun beating down on the dark rocks or white coral from wilting the plants. And it seems that dissolved salts in the plant sap help keep the leaves and stems from shriveling. If you place cut naupaka stems and leaves in fresh water, they will quickly droop and lose their fresh crispness. The cuttings stay perky if the water's salty.

Experiments have shown that the tiny seeds of the naupaka, which are encased in the spongy fruit, will germinate very rapidly even after a year in seawater. (Even coconuts do not do so well.) In further experiments, it was also found that naupaka seeds soaked in salt water germinated better than those soaked in fresh water.

Obviously, the naupaka is peculiarly suited to life along the shore, and it certainly did not need man's help to travel across the oceans. In fact, it would have been unlikely that naupaka would have been given space on the voyaging canoes of the Polynesians. Throughout Polynesia, the abundant plant was never particularly essential to man's survival.
Ancient Hawaiians used the bark to aid digestion, whittled its wood into canoe pegs and ate the berries when there was nothing better to eat. Cook Islanders used the pith of the branches to make dancing skirts and the hollowed out stems as peashooters. The French Polynesians used the crushed leaves as a dressing for coral cuts and fruit extracts were dissolved in green coconut water to treat ciguatera poisoning. Some say the fruits of the naupaka kuahiwi were used to make a traditional Hawaiian dye.

There are a number of differing legends about the naupaka - all of them involving separated lovers and none of them with happy endings. In one version it is said two lovers quarreled over some trivial matter as they walked along the beach. In a rage, the girl grabbed the flower of the naupaka, which the legend says was a whole flower in those days. She tore it in half and swore that she would not speak to her lover again until he brought her a new, complete blossom.

What neither of them knew was that when she angrily tore the flower in half, every other naupaka flower - on the beach-side plants and on their fine-leaved upland cousins (Scaevola chamissoniana) - also became half-flowers. Apparently some god took offense at this treatment of the plant and chose to punish the unthinking couple. The boy searched for a whole flower in vain and eventually died of a broken heart. The girl lived on, regretting ever afterwards, her temper tantrum. Countless generations later, the flowers are still divided in half.

Cold-eyed scientists tell us that the blossoms are not "half-flowers" at all. The flower, which is almost an inch wide, is merely divided by a slit so deep that it appears to be missing its top half. The gap between the two bottom petals allows certain insects to pollinate the flowers.


 

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Arts & Culture

Lindbergh's Grave


Since 1974, a flood of aviation buffs and old-timers have made the pilgrimage to a tiny churchyard cemetery. Near the back of the church cemetery and to the right, closest to the ocean is a simple grave, covered with stones and marked by a small ground-level plaque inscribed, "Charles A. Lindbergh. Born Michigan 1902. Died Maui 1974." The grave sits near the edge of the cemetery where there is a sudden drop of nearly 1,000 feet to the ocean and surf that can be heard crashing against the rocky shore.

In 1927, Lindbergh, a 25-year-old mail carrier, became an international hero when he fought weather and fatigue-induced hallucinations for 33-1/2 hours to become the first man to cross the Atlantic alone in an airplane.

He had not been able to sleep the night before his plane left New York, so by the time he landed in Paris, he had already been up for nearly 60 hours.
Some 150,000 screaming well-wishers met his plane when he landed in France. By that time, all Charles wanted to do was go to bed.
Later, he was stunned when more than 4 million people turned out for his return to New York. After the flight, Lindbergh became the new century's first media star. For this excruciatingly shy man, the intense interest and attention of his many fans was an unwelcome surprise.
The attention never stopped. Lindbergh was the "Lone Eagle" and the "pilot of the Spirit of Saint Louis's fame," and a legendary hero. He represented the heart and soul of the Age of Aviation.

During a goodwill tour to Mexico, the aviator met poet and aviatrix Anne Morrow and married her in 1929. A few years later, the kidnapping of the Lindbergh's 20-month-old infant son from the young family's home in New Jersey was the subject of another round of intense scrutiny by the media. The ransom demands went on for two and a half months, and the baby was eventually found dead just a few miles from home. (Apparently, the baby never made it out of the house alive. He had died when the kidnapper's ladder broke on the way out of the window.) As they were trying to deal with this tragedy the Lindbergh's were hounded by the press. The Lindbergh baby kidnapping trial was called "the trial of the century."

Throughout his life, Lindbergh tried to retreat from the spotlight of public attention. It was on the Hana Coast that he found the privacy he strove for during much of his life. His friend Sam Pryor, a former vice-president of Pan American Airways, who had retired to Hana in 1963 and created a private paradise on 100 acres of grassland in Kipahulu (11 miles from Hana town), encouraged the famous aviator to visit. Charles was so enchanted with the place that he asked Sam to find him some land to buy.

Sam sold him five acres near the ocean and in 1968 Charles built a simple stone-walled structure without electricity - a retirement home where he and his wife spent much of their time.

Toward the end of his life he frequently retreated to his Hana home, re-emerging in public life only as a spokesperson for the conservation movement, particularly of endangered humpback and blue whales.

In 1972 Lindbergh was diagnosed with lymphosarcoma. He tried various treatments in New York, but the cancer eventually spread to his lungs. After yet another treatment in a New York hospital in the summer of 1974, against the wishes of his doctors, Lindbergh requested that he be secretly flown to Hana where he had already planned his burial ceremony. He told friends at the time that he would "rather spend two days alive on Maui than two months alive in New York."

Charles was flown on a stretcher in a commercial 747 back to his beloved Maui. The other passengers had no idea who was behind the curtain in first class. He died in a friend's cottage on August 26, 1974, eight days after returning to Hana.

During his last days, he spent his time completing specific plans for his burial, including precise details for his grave. Following his plans, cowboys in Hana who had been Lindbergh's friends made a rough-hewn eucalyptus casket and lined it with a Hudson's Bay blanket sent from Lindbergh's home in Connecticut.

Lindbergh asked to be buried barefoot in the clothes he wore in Hana, a khaki work shirt and cotton work trousers. He also asked that people come to his funeral in work clothes, including his pallbearers, and that the burial take place as soon after his death as possible without the services of morticians. All of Lindbergh's last requests were followed, except for one. He had wanted the wild plum tree next to his grave removed, but his grave digger convinced him to let it live there with him.

His body was placed in the wooden casket, and taken to the church graveyard in a pickup truck. Fewer than 15 people were invited to attend the funeral and a Hawaiian hymn was sung as the casket was lowered into the grave he had designed, an 8-foot square that is 12 feet deep and lined with lava rock. The grave was large enough for both he and his wife Ann and he had sketched out its pipe drainage system and the way rocks would be "wedged in" to form the stone sides. The top of the grave was covered with smooth, rounded 'ili'ili stones.

There was a small write-up in Time and Newsweek magazines about his home in Kipahulu shortly after Lindbergh's death. The same articles mentioned that Charles Lindbergh was buried in the churchyard of an obscure church in East Maui, and shortly thereafter, people began arriving, searching for the famous aviator's grave - first just a few cars, building over the years into a steady stream of admirers.

The headstone on Charles Lindbergh's grave is a large block of gray Vermont granite. For the gravestone, Lindbergh chose an epitaph from Psalm 139: "...if I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea."

Per his instructions, the words are cut precisely one-quarter of an inch into the stone, deep enough to see but shallow enough that the wind and rain keeps them washed clean.

 

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Braddah-Nics Lexicon

STANDARD: It is so embarrassing!
BRADDAH-NICS: Only shame!

* * * * * *

STANDARD: She can be difficult.
BRADDAH-NICS: Oh, her! She get her ways....

* * * * * *

STANDARD: You don't have to impress me.
BRADDAH-NICS: No ack, you!


 

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Local Grinds

Mango Bread


Ingredients:

Procedure:

Combine and thoroughly mix ingredients.
Pour mixture into greased pan. Bake at 325 degrees F. for one hour.
Let cool for 20 minutes, ENJOY!

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Spotlight On…

Black Rock

There once was a princess of unimaginable beauty. So beautiful was she, many men came calling for her hand. One day, three particularly undesirable suitors approached her. Feeling rather uncomfortable in their presence, each was quickly turned away. Unfortunately, the princess did not realize the trouble this would bring.

These three men, obsessed and infuriated, each vowed to have the princess to themselves, or let no one have her at all.

Hearing of this, the princess and her parents quickly fled to Maui in search of help from the most powerful priest in the land. Finding him, the princess and her family begged for his help in riding them of these scoundrels. Taking pity on them, the priest agreed, and cast one of his most powerful spells.

To stop the pursuers, the priest turned the men to stone, one of which became what is known today as, Black Rock.
 

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