Kakalaioa. Plate 31 from the book: Indigenous flowers of the Hawaiian Islands

Plate 31 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 Kakalaioa.

Coesalpinia Bonducella, Flem.

The name of this plant means "thorny," and it is a most appropriate and descriptive one, as those who have had their clothes torn and hands scratched by its sharp hooklike thorns will at once admit. Yet, like all nature's productions, the Kakalaioa has its redeeming features. With its graceful inflorescence and foliage, it covers many a spot that would otherwise be barren, and is always a pleasing object, if one has the common sense to leave it alone.

It generally grows in rocky places on the lowlands, and by its strong rambling mode of growth covers everything within its reach.

The plant is altogether too large and spreading to be well represented - only part of the leaf, which is bipinnate, is shown.

The seed-pods are very curious, being thickly covered with sharp spines, and are first green, then brown, and when ripe, almost black. They grow in bunches of from eight to thirteen pods - only two are represented. - When fully ripe, these burst open, displaying from two to four, round, very hard seeds, about the size of marbles, which the native boys use in their games instead of the genuine article.