Now, out of print and hard to find, In Gardens of Hawai’i, published by the Bishop Museum in the late 1940s is one of the best general books covering natives and exotics found in Hawaiian gardens. Unfortunately, much of the taxonomy is out of date, but the book is rich with Hawaiian lore and plant stories. The author, Marie C Neal, for whom the rainbow shower tree, (Cassia X nealiae), is named, was a friend of the great Mary Kawena Pukui who co-authored the Hawaiian Dictionary. She probably provided many of the stories. There are two legends about the “half-flowers” of the beach and mountain naupaka plants. There are flowering specimens of both right across the path from each other, near the corner of the Hawaiian Garden (“Hawaiian Garden A”) that surrounds the 2nd pond, next to the yellow cinder block enclosure. Everyone knows the beach naupaka (naupaka kahakai, Scaevola taccada) an indigenous native found on almost every tropical seashore in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Only avid hikers know about our endemic Naupaka kuahiwi. There are at least seven endemic species which evolved in Hawaii’s forests and nowhere else.