Lehua blossom from the ‘ōhi‘a tree - The flower of Hawai‘i

The red lehua, blossom of the ‘ōhi‘a tree, is the flower of the island of Hawai‘i, as designated in 1923 by the Territorial legislature. The plant has many forms, from tall trees to low shrubs, leaves round to narrow and blunt or pointed and smooth or woolly. The flowers are red, rarely salmon, pink, yellow, or white. The wood is hard, good for flooring and furniture, formerly used for images, spears, mallets. It grows abundantly in wet areas. It was believed that picking lehua blossoms would cause rain.