Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Hawaiian Hike/Plant Tasting

On the island of Maui my family and I embarked on a hiking adventure through the rain forest...
Well, actually it was someones backyard.  But a back yard with waterfalls and a jungle nonetheless!

Our guide, Jeremy, showed us lots of interesting plants and told us which ones were good to eat.
First up was what he called the "ice cream pod"


This pod contained a white fruit that tasted like watermelon and had the texture of wet cotton balls.


Next we came to a type of ginger plant.


The yellow buds were edible-they had a kind of sour citrus taste.



Here is our guide, Jeremy pulling down a branch on a coffee tree for us to get a better look.



He said that the coffee berries were edible, but tasted like dirt until they were roasted.


This is a terrible picture of a fiddle head.  It grows on the end of the ferns.



It tasted kind of like a lettuce mild, but nutty.



We saw lots of other plants too!
Bananas


Flower from the passion fruit tree


Pineapples growing


All you have to do to grow a pineapple is put the top of an old pineapple fruit on the ground and it will start to take root.  Here is a pineapple that was growing on a tree:



This plant was touch sensitive.  When you touch it the plant reacts and the leaves close up and shrink.



I was a little obsessed with this moss.  Such beautiful shades of green.  The picture doesn't do it justice though!


"Cat whiskers" plant.


Some fungi


Awesome spikey tree



We also saw guavas growing, sugar cane and avocados!
Ahh the fruits of natures in this tropical location are bountiful indeed.

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