Saturday, July 23, 2011

A Short History Of The Anthurium In The Islands Of Hawaii

By Keola Kawanako


The narrative of the anthurium plant starts off a very long time back in a region far from Hawaii. Anthurium plants first popped up inside the rainforests of South America. They resided there undisturbed for hundreds of centuries. Native peoples might not have made a huge deal about them simply because they had been much simpler in appearance than they are these days.

From the numerous varieties of anthurium, one was taken to Hawaii in 1889 by a man named Samuel Damon. Damon was a fascinating man. The child of missionaries, he rose to great prominence within the Kingdom of Hawaii as a politician and as a businessman. In fact, in 1924 he left an estate that was valued at over $250M. This might not appear to be much, but converted into modern day dollars this number is well into the billions. Damon, or more likely his gardeners, grew the anthurium andreanum which he imported in the gardens of his mansion.

Out of Damon's gardens, these plants were given to other individuals who also began raising them in their gardens. These plants passed from garden to garden as folks gave them to friends. A large breakthrough occurred several years later when individuals learned to propagate these plants by seeds, rather than cuttings. Seed reproduction permitted individuals to selectively breed the flowers with the best traits and resulted in a proliferation of flowers in brand new shapes and colors.

Within the 1940s florists in Hawaii commenced selling a few of these blooms in their stores. These flowers became quite well-liked with tourists and locals, alike. And an business was born. Some people started increasing their farming of anthuriums from their gardens to full size farms. In the beginning they grew these flowers beneath the shade of tree ferns and fruit trees, however as their operations matured, they began raising anthuriums beneath buildings specifically constructed for cultivating these gorgeous flowers.

These days, anthurium blooms have become a worldwide enterprise. The invention of the airplane had a lot to do with this. Formerly, most anthuriums were marketed inside the islands, but now, the jet permits anthuriums to be shipped across the globe.




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