Wiliwili. Plate 18 from the book: Indigenous flowers of the Hawaiian Islands

Plate 18 of 44 from Isabella Sinclair's Indigenous flowers of the Hawaiian Islands (1885). The coloured illustration is accompanied by the following text describing the plant:

The Wiliwili.

Erythrina monosperma, Gaud.?

The wiliwili is found in the driest districts, not only sustaining life, but growing luxuriantly where few other trees could exist. It is seldom more than twenty-five feet high, rarely having a trunk ten feet clear of branches. The wood, when dry, is almost as light as cork, and is much used by the natives for out-riggers to their canoes, on account of its buoyancy. This is one of the few Hawaiian trees, which shed their leaves in autumn. It blooms in early spring, and the tree may often be found covered with flowers while the leaf-buds are only forming.

The flowers vary in colour from pale yellow to orange scarlet. There is no perceptible difference in the trees, but the natives say the wood of those with scarlet flowers is slightly harder and more durable than the other.

The wiliwili carries its seed-pods for many months, and may be seen with a profusion of flowers, together with the seed-pods of the previous season. The pretty birght scarlet seeds were in much request in olden times for leis, (necklaces), but like many other graceful Hawaiian fashions, a wiliwili lei is now rarely seen.