A kiss on the cheek, a sweet fragrance, the feeling of aloha as a lei is draped over your shoulders. For those who grew up here, the giving and receiving of lei holds a special place in our lives. With graduation season approaching, we thought it would be fitting to highlight some of the various lei pua (flowers) and foliages grown in Hawaii. There are a large number of plants that can be turned into lei. We’ll spotlight five of them.
Puakenikeni
This yellow/orange flower is prized for its sweet scent, used not only in lei but also in perfumes. Originally brought to the islands in the late 1800s, the Puakenikeni plant is fast-growing and thrives in rich soil and regular watering. The best way to propagate them is via air layering. Pruning the tree low and wide helps keep the flowers at a pickable height. The flowers themselves bloom only for a short time, starting off white, then turning to a pale yellow and finally turning light orange as they mature. Puakenikeni has been the muse for many Hawaiian mele, including Puakenikeni Lei by Waimea’s own Lim Family.

Puakenikeni blooms - Photo taken by Kaydn Ito
Pakalana
Another flower prized for its fragrance, Pakalana (also called Chinese Violet) is native to India and China and was brought here in the early 1800s. Its flowers grow in clusters and are most fragrant at night. Pakalana is a member of the milkweed family, the same family as crown flower, although pakalana does not contain the poisonous milky sap found when picking its cousin crown. It grows on a vine and is very low-maintenance, so long as it gets plenty of sun and has something to grow on.The plant itself is not attractive, which means that most nurseries won’t carry them. Therefore, if you have a pakalana plant at home, keep it alive!

Handful of Pakalana
Pikake
This flower of lovely (de)scent is a type of jasmine. The name pikake comes from the word “peacock”, named so because princess Kaiulani was fond of this flower and the bird. It is the national flower of the Philippines, but originated in India. There are four types of Jasminum Sambac: single, semi-double, rose, and multi-whorled. The single pikake is the one commercially grown in Hawaii. The plant is in the olive family and grows as a shrub which thrives with hot sunny weather and good drainage. Because the flowers are small, it takes around 100 blossoms to make 1 single strand lei (the lei pictured took about 400). The pikake blooms will stay fragrant in the fridge for 4-6 days.

Rope-style pikake lei
Jade
Also called Emerald vine, jade is a flowering vine native to the Philippines. The flowers have an unusual, crescent-moon shape which are greenish or bluish in color depending on their temperature. The vine grows on fences, trellises or trees towards sunlight with the beak-shaped flowers growing in clusters like grapes. The plant also produces seed pods, which can be hand-pollinated to produce melon-like fruit. If left untrimmed the blue jade vine can grow up to 75 feet!

Jade cluster
Maile
We couldn’t write a lei article without featuring one of Hawaii island’s most cherished lei. Maile has been highly prized for its fragrance and traditionally when given was considered to have a sacred quality. In the old Hawaiian Kingdom It was used as a peace offering between opposing chiefs. Though there is a variety endemic to Hawaii, most of the maile used in lei today is a variant brought over from the Cooke Islands. It grows as a shrubby vine, and the new growth is picked for lei. Maile is very slow-growing, and has had issues of being over-picked during busy lei seasons. It’s important to allow lei plants to grow and respect the growing process.

3-strand Maile lei
Lei-making is a tradition steeped in aloha and respect, and a great way to make someone feel special. We want to wish the best to all of our graduates of the class of 2024. May your successes be as bountiful as the lei that will cover your shoulders when you graduate!
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