Hopes rise by survival of Lahaina’s banyan tree
After losing nearly 25,000 trees in the wildfire, 300 have survived including the famed banyan tree, and Maui finds hope.
Maui County arborist Timothy Griffith describes the progress Lahaina’s scorched banyan tree has made in the past six months. — The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
The shaded Lahaina square where tourists once milled beneath the town’s famed banyan tree has become the domain of volunteer papaya, tomato and lilikoi sprouts.
“We know what the birds are eating,” Maui County Arborist Timothy Griffith said Wednesday morning after ducking under a yellow rope lining the sidewalk along Front Street. The impromptu garden and encouraging signs of life in the canopy above provide hope six months after the windswept fire that transformed colorful Lahaina into a smoking, ash-gray ruin.
All over town, winter rains have turned bare earth into plots of lush grass and weeds. Trees fortunate to have escaped the flames stand out like green thumbs amid the rusting rubble and blackened urban forest. Many other trees in bloom are so badly damaged their flushes of growth are merely final dying gasps.
“New shoots do not necessarily mean it will survive,” Griffith said.
He points to a California feather duster palm tree on the grounds of Hale Pa’ahao, the Old Lahaina Prison, where three of its four trees deemed “exceptional” by Maui County have already died. The feather duster palm is the fourth, and though it sports green fronds, its trunk is cracked and scorched.
The blackened trunk of the historic, 250-year-old ulu tree, Puloa, may have succumbed to the flames, but its genetics live on thanks to a UH-Hilo professor. In the background of this photo taken Wednesday are the ruins of Kobe Japanese Steak House and the undamaged Pioneer Mill Smokestack. — The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
“It looks bad, but maybe it is superficial,” Griffith said. “It is going to be wait and see.”
Maui County Arborists Committee Chairman and founder of Treecovery Hawaii, Duane Sparkman, estimates that Lahaina lost close to 25,000 trees. He says only about 300 remain viable.
Among those with hope is the Indian banyan tree planted more then 150 years ago on April 24, 1873. The tree was a single trunk and eight feet tall when it was put into the ground to mark the 50th anniversary of the first American Protestant mission to the island. It grew to cover nearly an acre before the fire.
“It’s holding strong,” Griffith said beneath the tree Wednesday. “For the most part, it was just singed in the canopy. It was three weeks after the fire and we started seeing little leaf sprouts.”
Griffith says monkeypod trees lining Front Street helped protect the banyan from the worst of the windblown flames as the Wharf Cinema Center and other nearby buildings went up. Dead portions of the banyan closest to Front Street will soon be trimmed, he says. There are also worrisome cracks and wounds where disease and insect borers might gain purchase in living sections, but the plan has been to give the tree time before trimming, as that in itself is a stressor.
A pair of ulu keiki sprout through the slats of a melted fence near the ruins of Waiola Church Hall Wednesday. The keiki are from the roots of a historic ulu tree (background) killed by the Aug. 8 fire. — The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
“The balancing act for us is being too aggressive, not getting too aggressive,” Griffith said. “It might have reserves that the tree can pull out.”
Wireless electronic sensors monitoring the banyan’s movement of water and nutrients from roots to limbs have been transmitting encouraging news.
“That tree is starting to make a turn for the better,” Sparkman said Thursday. “Every single day, when the sun comes out, that tree expands. At night it contracts. You can actually see this expansion and contraction (on digital readouts). It’s like a heartbeat. It’s pretty cool.”
The feeling of hope extends to historic Lahaina trees killed by the fire that decimated the town on Aug 8, 2023. Along narrow Luakini Street, behind the recently shored-up Baldwin Home Museum, stands the coal-black trunk of the ulu, or breadfruit, tree named Puloa. Sparkman said the tree was at least 250 years old and its genealogy may go back as many as 1,200 years. He and Griffith credit UH-Hilo professor Dr. Noa Lincoln for gathering living material from Puloa’s roots after the fire. Lincoln has managed to grow cultures to start new trees.
Puloa may have succumbed to the fire, Sparkman says, but it will live on, thanks to Lincoln.
Goodfellow Brothers operator Bruce Yoakum waters the banyan tree Wednesday morning. — The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
“That tree is still alive,” he said.
A historic ulu tree killed by the fire behind the ruins of Waiola Church Hall is perpetuating itself through more old-fashioned ways. Keiki, or babies, sprout thick around its blackened trunk. Other keiki, spawned by the tree’s far-reaching roots, jut through the slats of a melted fence more than 30 feet away. The plan is to give the sprouts time to take root before collecting them to raise until the day Lahaina and its people are ready to replant.
Griffith and Sparkman say they hope to see Lahaina’s link to its history and plant genealogy perpetuated by replanting the town with all sorts of culled stock when it is time to rebuild. That involves processes like taking root cuttings and grafts, as well as finding the spaces and people to not only grow the seedlings and saplings, but also to hold onto them until Lahaina is ready.
Sparkman said Treecovery Hawaii plans to help displaced and affected Lahaina landowners plant all sorts of trees, including ones grown from stock culled from their own dying trees.
“The whole plan of this is basically to be a free space where people can pick up trees for free to replant the burned and affected areas,” Sparkman said. “We all kind of visualize this stretch of natives along the ocean, like wiliwili, ohe makai, milo and kamani, and then a fruit forest as you move into neighborhoods. We’ve partnered with a master grafter in Haiku who is growing mangoes and avocados, and also growing out what these people want.
An array of wireless sensors monitor the tree’s recovery. — The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
“We estimate we lost close to 25,000 trees. We’re watering 300 trees. There aren’t that many left. It’s kind of scary.”
County Arborist Griffith says replanting the urban forest will pose a variety of challenges. Liability concerns mean fruit trees will likely be found on private property rather than public.
“I can’t be having 20-pound ulu fruits falling on people’s heads,” he said.
Planting trees able to flourish in a hardened environment dominated by buildings, streets, sidewalks and parking lots is also important. Some of the surviving trees currently going strong in Lahaina include rainbow showers by Old Lahaina Center, a calabash tree by the gutted Lahaina Public Library and a Mexican fan palm at Hale Pa’ahao.
The poster child for the town’s non-native tree species is the 151-year-old banyan. Griffith says the behemoth has gotten a bad rap from those who claim it does not belong.
A lonely sprout grows out of one of the Lahaina banyan tree’s damaged limbs Wednesday. — The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
“It’s not invasive,” Griffith said. “If it was, there would be Indian banyan sprouts everywhere. It was a gift. This wasn’t hurting anything. It’s just an iconic representation of Lahaina town.”
Griffith said sections of power poles donated by Hawaiian Electric will be used to support some of the banyan’s long limbs after deadwood secondary trunks are removed. All debris is to be chipped and spread as mulch around the tree.
To assist the banyan’s recovery, water tanker operators from Goodfellow Brothers have given it daily waterings since days after the fire. Operator Bruce Yoakum was directing the water cannon Wednesday morning.
“I do this every day, 5,000 gallons,” Yoakum said. “I work my way around the square. It’s cool. The green leaves, it gives it hope.”
The daily deluge has not only been good for the banyan, but also the papaya, tomato and lilikoi plants below. Griffith says the tree’s rebound is a fitting symbol of resilience and perseverance.
“It’s basically a Phoenix rising from the ashes,” Griffith said. “It is showing signs of life, it’s recovering. If the banyan can show signs of life, Lahaina can do the same thing. Lahaina will rise from the ashes.”
Staff Writer Matthew Thayer can be reached at mthayer@mauinews.com.
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- Healthy leaves and fruits bear testament to the banyan tree’s recovery Wednesday. — The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
Healthy leaves and fruits bear testament to the banyan tree’s recovery Wednesday. — The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
Maui County arborist Timothy Griffith snaps a photo of a papaya tree growing beneath Lahaina’s banyan Wednesday. Griffth said he hopes to test fruit from the young tree for contaminates to gauge the fire’s impact on the area’s soil. — The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
Bark sloughs off the trunk of a dead banyan tree along Front Street Wednesday. The sight is common in Lahaina where an estimated 25,000 trees were fatally wounded by the wildfire that consumed the town on Aug. 8, 2023. — The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo