One of the strangest and most attractive of Hawaii’s plant novelties is the “Wooden Rose,” which looks indeed like some wonderful bit of carving, rubbed to an exquisite satiny brown finish. The “rose” however, is really the dried seed pod of a species of morning-glory, as anyone familiar with the ordinary morning-glory seed will at once recognize. The central ball holds the seeds while the enlarged, dried calyx which surrounds it, appears to be petals.
In Hawaii, the vine is a perennial, grown from seeds. Its strong shoots spread rampantly during the summer month, climbing high into trees or covering buildings and fences. The leaf is divided into seven pointed lobes. The flowers first appear in autumn. They are yellow, small, rather inconspicuous and tubular, like the small yellow morning-glory which they really are. After they fall, the calyx begins to develop until it has enlarged into what looks like an immense pointed, cream-colored bud. As this begins to dry, it opens, showing the enlarged seed case. In a few days, the “wood rose” is stiff and brown. About three months are required from the time the blossom appears until the seed pod is ready to cut. These pods may be used as a long-lived decoration; and, since the flowers grow at intervals along the shoot in the leaf axils, graceful lengths of stem with many roses can be used for flower arrangements.
The vine grows generally throughout the tropics but is sometimes called Ceylon Morning-glory. (Plate XI)
CAT’S CLAW VINE. HUG-ME-TIGHT _Bignonia unguis-cati Linnaeus_
The three-pointed, claw-like tendrils by which this vine clings closely to trees, or walls, have given it the two names by which it is commonly known. But it will be readily recognized and remembered from the cloth of gold it flings several times a year over everything it covers. Individual flowers are trumpet shaped, with five spreading lobes, about two inches across. The color is a clear, canary yellow. (Plate XII)
The leaves are compound, the paired leaflets being pointed and narrow. The plant is a native of tropical America where it is related to some of the giant lianas that creep through the Brazilian jungle. Its most conspicuous relative in Honolulu is the Firecracker vine, _Bignonia venusta_, illustrated on Plate XI.