August 2010. A request for the identification of the plant (in foreground). It is small tree with hairy pods which split when dry. It’s grown as an ornamental.

There were several suggestions:

• It looks like the native coastal plant, Dolicholoboium umbellatum, which is found in coastal beach forest.
• The photo resembles Tecoma stans (Bignoniaceae), a popular ornamental plant that has naturalized well in some semiarid parts of the Pacific Islands. But the sender said it was not that.
• The photo resembles Tabebuia chrysotricha, which has been introduced in Hawaii as an ornamental. Specimens in the Bishop Museum herbarium match the photo reasonably well. The (Museum???s) cultivated flora mentions a particular character that seems distinctive – the hairs on the fruit are described as ???reddish brown ??? treelike, star-shaped hairs.

The sender agreed it was likely to be Tabebuia.