Native Hawaiian plants make up a unique flora because of the extreme isolation of the Hawaiian Islands. Over the course of generations, the Hawaiian people learned how to use the native flora to meet their needs. Along with the crops that the settlers introduced from the South Pacific, native plants became the basis for Hawaiian society and economy. In addition to describing the plants and their habitats, this guide relates the significance that native and Polynesian-introduced plants had to traditional Hawaiian culture, and tells how these plants are still used today.

Text by Noa Kekuewa Lincoln, with contributions by Peter Van Dyke, Brian Kiyabu, Clyde

Imada, George Staples, and Manuel Rego

Photographs by Noa Lincoln, R. Kealohapauʻole Manakū, Clyde Imada, and Bernice 

Akamine

First Published: 2009
Reprinted: 2025 (Fifth printing)
Size: 6 x 9 in.
Pages: 144
Binding: Paper
ISBN: 9781581780925