Lahaina’s historic banyan tree has sprouted its first leaves since being badly burned in last month’s deadly wildfires in Maui, an encouraging sign for local arborists and residents who see the tree as a “symbol of hope.”
On Monday, the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources posted a video to its social media, showing bright green leaves standing out against charred branches. The department wrote that arborists volunteering to save the 150-year-old tree are encouraged by these early signs of its recovery.
“To me, [the banyan tree] is a symbol of hope. We’re taking it to heart to try to bring back the tree to give some hope to Lahaina,” Chris Imonti, a Maui local and volunteer landscape contractor working to restore the tree, said last month in a video on the recovery effort. “We don’t know what’s down the line but I think it’s going to be a new beginning for everybody.”
The DLNR, which is not directly involved in the tree’s recovery, posted updates throughout August on the local volunteers working to restore it. Their efforts included regularly aerating the soil and providing it with an array of nutrients, Hawai’i Magazine reported.
“On the tree, as soon as we see a new bud pop or something like that, then we know that the tree’s responding to our treatments, or we may have to change our treatments,” Steve Nimz, the arborist heading the recovery operation, said in a video update posted on Aug. 17. “The tree is going to tell us what to do.”
The wildfires that swept across Maui in August were the deadliest in modern U.S. history, killing at least 97 people. In the aftermath of the tragedy, photos of the burned but standing tree became popular online, with some saying it denoted the resilience of Hawaii and its residents.
The banyan tree was just 8-feet tall when it was planted in 1873. It was a gift shipped from India to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first Protestant mission in Lahaina and was planted 71 years after King Kamehameha declared Lahaina the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
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