The hala tree in Hawaii, species name Pandanus tectorius, is an evergreen tree with very long, narrow leaves and a pale, branching trunk that is surrounded at its base by a conical group of propping air roots.
We have two such trees by the street. The female hala produces clusters of fruit that look like giant candy corn and taste like mildly sweet candy wax. Our male hala tree produces hīnano (the male flowers) once or twice a year, including this week. Hīnano flowers are long white clusters with petals (actually bracts) that are about 30 to 50 cm in length and a creamy white. The modified leaves that make up the hīnano's bracts have some similarity to the long (150 cm) hala leaves, but are much softer and lack their strong fiber and thorny edges.
Polynesians have long used strips of hala tree leaves (lauhala) for weaving. I'm told that the old Hawaii's nobility prized the hīnano's sweet smelling flower petals for making soft, expensive floor mats.
