Durham NC

In Hawaii, I couldn't stop thinking of the colonization. Long ago, unpopulated Hawaii attracted a tribe -- Polynesians who came, improbably, by boat -- who loved and dwelled in her. Then that race was overrun by another that sought only to plunder her, to make her a trophy, a buffer against Asia, a real estate investment, a protectorate. Whenever I saw native Hawaiians -- they are populous and prominent -- I wondered what it must be like, to do this yeoman's work of tilling, worshipping, sowing, honoring; only to find that some blank, brazen interloper has come with money and guns to rob you of your toil?

And worse, to find that the land -- that great, glowing, omnivorous, protean terrain -- is still as rich, and as fertile, as ever? That no amount of disruption, corruption, can put her great natural beauty asunder? You want her to protest by going sere and barren. But Hawaii remains ever amazing, despite the mainland invasions, despite the imperial grip of money around her throat and heart, despite her confiscation and domestication. I hope she still harbors a secret ritual passion deep in her rainy jungles, where no one ever goes. Meanwhile she supports anyone and anything that comes to her. Alongside indigenous, endangered flora grow Texan prickly pear cacti and California eucalyptus trees.

For an instructive and memorable tour of Hawaiian vegetation, visit the Keanae Arboretum as you drive the Hana Highway (a mandatory road trip for all Maui visitors). Here is planted, it seems, every tree on earth. There are native Öhi'a Lehua next to Indian Cashews; the well-named Monstera from Central America, something from India called a Sissoo; another known as Angel's Trumpet. Swamp Mahogany and Cycad. In the right season you can pluck and feast on bananas, guava, pomelo, jackfruit, marang, mangosteen and lime. There are dozens of palm species. The best name: Solitaire Palm.

But you will finally have to stop and gawk at the Indonesian Bagras (Eucalyptus deglupta). Several stand in a grove of varied gum trees, and this particular species has a smooth painted bark. The color and striation are so vivid that you might swear an animator has taken the cels of Keanae Arboretum and drawn in the Bagras trees afterwards, to make it look even more like a tropical wonderland than it already is. You might expect a pink elephant to wander through the grove, ridden by a princess. A band of native fairies may descend from the clouds; a great talking fish might clamber ashore from the creek and grant you four wishes.

I've seen the redwoods and the sequoias in California. The banyan in Lahaina, the teak and banana jungles of Asia. Wildflower preserves. But I have never been transfixed as I was by the Bagras.

Night is falling on me now. Mosquitoes bore themselves into my flesh. I am tired from a long day of hiking along a rocky cliff trail above the bay. Hungry from exercise. But I don't leave yet. I can't let go of these Bagras trees that stand a hundred feet tall.

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