With its paper-thin petals and ephemeral flowers, native ‘ilima tells a story of precarity and perserverance.
Images by John Hook
ʻIlima flowers are ephemeral. As thin as tissue and slightly tacky to the touch, the golden blossoms open with the arrival of the sun on their delicate skin. As night descends, they close upon themselves. The spent flowers dry on the branch or fall from the calyx, little balls of sunshine that come to rest upon the ground. Depending on who is gathering pua for lei, they may be harvested in the evening as buds or in the morning as soon as they unfurl. Once picked, you have a day, two at most, to string and give a lei.
Looked at from different perspectives, ʻilima is at either a precarious point or it is a sign of perseverance. The seed of this story was the former, based on my perception of lei ʻilima as few and far between. Having bought a few ʻilima starters from a booth at the KCC farmers market, I was daunted by the task of harvesting enough flowers to string a lei. (Depending on the flower and the day, a typical single-string ʻilima lei can take from 500 to nearly 1,000 flowers.) I also realized I had never noticed ʻilima growing in the Hawaiʻi landscape, whether cultivated or wild. Was I just not paying attention? Or was that golden ‘ilima fading from view?
I soon learned that when ʻilima is on the mind, it manifests. To find the plant in mesic forest or rocky soil along the coast, it is easiest to look for pops of gold and yellow. In the mountains, it appears as wiry bushes with small deep-green leaves and golden-orange blooms; by the sea, it crawls along the ground, silvery green and butter yellow. It grows from Nihoa, where its flower buds are eaten by the critically endangered Nihoa finch, to Hawai‘i Island’s South Point and throughout the Pacific. How it expresses itself varies between elevation and islands. ʻIlima seeds may be little khaki wedges or dark black slivers with tiny points like horns. While the leaves, stems, amount of flowers, and canopy can be quite different, the most consistent trait is the pua. Despite its diversity, scientists at University of Hawaiʻi have confirmed that ʻilima, or sida fallax, is indeed a single species.
Among the landscape is the wao ʻilima, also known as ʻāpaʻa, which is dry, arid land on the mountainside below wao kanaka, the inland area where humans live and grow food. An article in an August 1885 issue of The Daily Bulletin, titled “Viewing the Ranches,” recounts a visit to the James Campbell-owned Honouliuli Ranch: “The first hour’s riding is over an immense plain covered with a heavy growth of ilima and other small leafy plants. The ‘ilima is pronounced by graziers an excellent fattening plant for cattle. It grows here in endless quantity.” ʻIlima from up to 6,500 feet in elevation all the way to the shoreline, flourishing still on islets such as Kapapa off Kāneʻohe Bay and other less trafficked isles such as Baker Island.
From a distance, the flowers of invasive lantana, Chinese wedelia, or Golden crownbeard, can have the same golden effect as ʻilima. The native plant has also been outcompeted by invasive grasses. But when the Waikoloa Dry Forest Initiative on Hawaiʻi Island started to remove such grasses, ʻilima seeds began to sprout. Over time, ʻilima filled in the areas between the trees and shrubs the organization planted. Each year it collects millions of ʻilima seeds, which have been used in post-fire restoration efforts. “We often refer to ʻilima as a champion species, a habitat builder, and a partner in forest restoration,” writes Jen Lawson.
To this day, ʻilima grows in places like the Waiʻanae Mountains and Waialeʻe on O’ahuʻs north shore. Just as the plant can be spotted if you look enough, finding an ʻilima lei maker seems to be a matter of knowing whom to ask, hoping for someone to come along, or taking up the task yourself. Discussing the mele “Lei ʻIlima” by Charles E. King, kumu hula and musician Manu Boyd and his kumu Robert Cazimero both recall how fortunate they’ve been to be graced by ʻilima lei “thanks to Auntie Honey,” says Boyd, referring to the late generational lei ‘ilima maker Emelia Lam Ho Ka‘īlio, “and before that Auntie Verna,” Cazimero says.
Pua Hana in Kaimukī received its lei ʻilima from Dorothy “Dot” Nishida, who began making lei in 1967, according to her son Glenn Nishida. Now 91 years old, she averages about four strands a week. Dot got her first plant from a friend of her husband in Salt Lake and taught herself to make the lei. In 2015, a gardening error killed the 15 thriving plants she had in her yard in Kāneʻohe, which put a stop to her lei making. Then, in 2021, her grandson found a plant at City Mill, which inspired the family to pick up the craft again. These days, Dot goes to Glenn’s home about three times a week to harvest flowers from the four plants that grow in his Kāneʻohe yard and then make lei; other times Glenn’s wife, Joan Maeshiro, brings flowers to Dot at home, where she also has two flowering plants. They pick buds before the sun arrives, around 6:30 a.m., remove the calyxes, and spread them on a 3-inch foam pad. Once they bloom, which takes about an hour, Dot arranges them in rows and strings 12 at a time onto an orange thread using a needle sourced from Japan, a task she repeats 50 to 65 times. In total, it takes around 4 to 6 hours to complete a lei.
At Picket Fence Florist in Kailua is another ʻilima lei maker, Howard Souza, who was born and raised in Kailua. While he has been working as a floral designer for the shop’s owner, Sadie Akamine, for 37 years, only for the last few has he been making ʻilima lei. He began making lei because he likes growing the plant, which is akin to the hybrid hibiscus he was already cultivating in his yard. He harvests the flowers with his wife when the sun is shining on them, around 9:30 a.m., though he knows of a couple in ʻEwa Beach who harvests closer to 7 a.m., when the flowers open there. It takes them about two hours to collect, and then anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half to string the lei. He recalls meeting a worker at Home Depot who said his in-laws grew and made ‘ilima lei in Kaimukī — they were known as the ‘ilima couple, and the flower is even on their headstone. According to Howard, who is 75 years old, it is elderly people who make ʻilima lei, as they have the time and patience.
Looked at from different perspectives, ʻilima is at either a precarious point or it is a sign of perseverance.
ʻIlima has long graced the Hawaiian Islands, but gone are the days when ʻilima was more prominent than orchid, plumeria, pua kenikeni lei — when it was one of the most abundant lei flowers of all. The flower has been used in lāʻau lapaʻau in the third trimester to lubricate the birth canal and for digestion for infants. The branches were used precontact for hale frames, floor coverings, loʻi fencing, hula hālau altars, and basket making. It may be the only flower Hawaiians cultivated for lei making pre-contact. In an oral history, kumu hula ‘Iwalani Tseu, who was born in 1950, calls her hometown Honouliuli, “a town noted for its ‘ilima flower farms.”
The lei appears in numerous moʻolelo. In one, the journeying goddess Hiʻiaka saw people adorned in ʻilima lei jumping into the sea at Makua. In another, Kahikilani, who traveled from Kauaʻi to try his hand surfing the waves of Paumalu, fell in love with Kaiulani, who made him lei of lehua — until the day he accepted a lei ʻilima from another woman. For his betrayal, she turned him to stone.
Another name given to lei ʻilima is lei ʻāpiki, because it was believed to attract mischievous spirits. It has been considered unlucky and lucky. Lei ʻilima were prominent among royalty, which may be because of its resemblance of a mamo feather lei. Combined with maile lei, stacks of ʻilima are flex, a symbol of abundance and affection and connection.
Vicky Holt Takamine, kumu hula of Pua Aliʻi ʻIlima and founder and executive director of PAʻI Foundation, has a large ʻilima bush in her backyard in ʻAiea. One recent morning, her aunty, who has long made lei ʻilima, collected seeds from it to take home. Takamine’s late mother would string a lei if the flowers were set before her even into her 90s. Not long ago, Takamine moved aside some failed plant starters only to find a keiki ʻilima flourishing on the ground. She confesses she’s not the best ʻilima lei maker, so she’s found her own approach — to wili clusters of ʻilima buds into lei, which then open throughout the day.
Takamine has had a long relationship with ʻilima, at least since her kumu hula Maiki Aiu Lake named her hālau class for ʻilima in 1975. For ʻūniki, the students were to use ʻilima, which meant they had to figure out how to forage and grow it. They found the flower at Makapuʻu, Kalaeloa (Barber’s Point), Awāwāmalu (Sandy’s). She remembers gathering from bunches of prostrate ʻilima kahakai in yellow light of the Awāwāmalu parking lot at night. Now, only grass grows there.
Takamine started Pua Aliʻi ʻIlima in 1977, the hālau’s name chosen by Aunty Maiki at Takamine’s request — pua ʻilima for her graduating class, aliʻi for her royal lineage. Takamine has carried the ʻilima name with her to PAʻI Foundation — which is both the acronym for her ʻohana’s hālau and the Hawaiian word for slap, or sudden impact. Takamine was also pivotal in the development of the artists lofts in Kakaʻako, which is named Ola Ka ʻIlima Artspace Lofts, meaning “where ʻilima thrives,” which she says anchors it on Oʻahu and is meant to manifest creativity. ʻIlima is not only a kinolau for Laka, the goddess of hula, she explains, but also for the god Kāne, embodying the latter’s traits of creativity, fresh water, sunlight. She is happy to still see ʻilima growing in the shared garden plots in the
building’s courtyard.
In 1997, Takamine also firmly opposed a bill introduced by the state legislature to restrict gathering rights on developed and undeveloped lands and requiring Native Hawaiians to apply for permits to gather materials. “We have to go where it’s growing and growing profusely to get kinolau to represent,” she says. “Natural resources are vital, and we need access to the beach where [ʻilima] grow, ferns in the mountains, to teach hālau how to do these things,” Takamine says. It is also important, she adds, for anyone in the islands who wants to gather enough flowers to make a lei.
When I asked Takamine what she wishes for ʻilima, she said it is to see it growing freely in abundant bunches rather than just as single bushes in someone’s yard. Following Takamine’s memories, I set out to find ʻilima at Makapuʻu with my 3-year-old. We foundered on the coastal path and tucked back into the car, but then I thought to take a quick swing by Awāwāmalu. On the less-trafficked end of the parking lot, I found a couple ‘ilima flowers greeting the sun between naupaka leaves. Looking further, I saw a few more plants crawling along the sand. I squeezed a few blossoms from their calyxes and handed them to my daughter, who popped them in her mouth and said they tasted like foam. Then we headed back to our potted ‘ilima flowering at home.