Hawaii Flower Guide

Hawaiian Flowers

Hawaii flowers bring color, fragrance and meaning to the Islands, from hibiscus, plumeria and pikake to orchids, ginger, heliconia and lei blossoms seen in gardens, landscapes and natural areas.

Hawaii Flowers, Lei Blossoms and Tropical Garden Plants

Hawaii's flowers are part of daily island life, not just scenery. Bright hibiscus blossoms grow in yards and gardens, fragrant plumeria and pikake are used for lei, and bold tropical plants such as heliconia, red ginger and orchids add color to landscapes across the Islands.

Some flowers associated with Hawaii are native, while others arrived through Polynesian voyaging, farming, gardening or ornamental landscaping. Over time, many introduced flowers became familiar parts of local neighborhoods, resort grounds, botanical gardens, farmers markets and special occasions.

Flowers Used for Lei and Celebrations

Many Hawaii flowers are loved for both their appearance and scent. Plumeria, pikake, tuberose, gardenia and crown flower are among the best-known lei flowers. A lei is more than a pretty flower necklace; fragrance, freshness, color and meaning all matter.

Different flowers work better for different lei styles. Some are soft and fragrant, while others last longer or hold their shape well. Lei makers choose blooms based on the occasion, the person receiving the lei and the feeling the flowers create.

Color, Habitat and Island Variety

Hawaii's warm climate supports many flowering plants. Wet windward areas often have lush tropical growth, while drier leeward areas may feature hardier shrubs, vines and flowering trees. Botanical gardens are good places to see many species in one visit, but flowers also appear along roadsides, beaches, trails and home gardens.

Use this flower guide to compare familiar blooms, lei plants, native species, ornamental shrubs, vines and tropical garden favorites found throughout Hawaii.

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Allamanda

Allamanda is a sunny tropical vine with glossy green leaves and golden trumpet-shaped flowers. In Hawaii, it is often grown on fences, trellises and garden borders where it has room to climb.

Amaryllis Barbados Lily

Amaryllis Barbados Lily is a tropical flowering plant with bold, lily-like blooms and long green leaves. In Hawaii, it grows in moist pastures and warm landscapes, adding bright color where conditions stay mild.

Banana Blossom

Banana blossom is the large purple flower of the banana plant, a useful plant long valued in Hawaii for food, lei making, cooking, dye and practical everyday uses.

Beach Naupaka

Beach naupaka is one of Hawaii's most familiar shoreline plants, with hardy green leaves and yellow-white half-flowers that grow close to beaches, dunes and salty coastal areas.

Bird of Paradise

Bird of Paradise is a bold tropical flower with orange petals and a blue tongue that looks like a colorful bird. In Hawaii, it is often used in gardens, resort landscapes and long-lasting floral arrangements.

Black-Eyed Susan

Black-Eyed Susan is a fast-growing tropical vine with bright orange or yellow flowers and a dark purple center. In Hawaii, this African native adds bold color to hillsides, fences, trellises and sunny garden areas.

Blue Ginger

Blue ginger is a shade-loving tropical plant with glossy green leaves and purple-blue flower clusters. In Hawaii, it brings cool color and lush texture to gardens, shaded borders and tropical landscapes.

Canna

Canna is a bold tropical plant with colorful flowers, broad leaves and hard seeds once used in Hawaii for lei and rattle-beads. It grows well in wet forests, garden borders and lush tropical landscapes.

Cigar Flower

Cigar flower is a compact shrub with small red tube-shaped blooms and ash-colored tips. In Hawaii, lei makers began using this distinctive flower in the mid-1800s.

Coffee

Coffee plants in Hawaii produce fragrant white “Hawaiian snow” flowers and red fruit that hold the beans used for island-grown coffee. Since 1823, coffee has grown from Manoa Valley to farms across the Islands.

Croton

Croton is a colorful tropical shrub with red, yellow, orange, purple and green leaves marked by spots and streaks. In Hawaii, crotons brighten yards, hedges, borders and resort landscapes.

Crown Flower

Crown flower is a fragrant lei blossom with royal symbolism in Hawaii. Queen Liliuokalani favored this coastal shrub, whose curled petals reveal a small crown-like center.

Cup of Gold

Cup of Gold is a fast-growing tropical vine with huge golden-yellow blossoms, purple streaks and a sweet scent. In Hawaii, it grows best in humid, rainforest-like settings.

Elephant's Ear

Elephant's Ear is a bold tropical plant with huge green leaves that can reach 3 feet long. Polynesian voyagers carried this useful plant across the Pacific, and it grows best in moist, wind-protected places.

Evening Primrose

Evening primrose is a delicate flowering plant whose blossoms open around sunset, then change color and drop the next day. In Hawaii's warm climate, it adds soft color to sunny, well-drained areas.

Firecracker Plant

Firecracker plant is a low-maintenance tropical shrub with slender stems and bright red tubular flowers that bloom year-round. In Hawaii, it works well as a hedge, groundcover or colorful garden accent.

Fuchsia

Fuchsia is a shade-loving flowering shrub with dangling blossoms that inspired the Hawaiian name kulapepeiao, meaning “earring.” In Hawaii, it grows best in moist, protected gardens and wet forest areas.

Galphimia Glauca

Galphimia glauca is a sunny tropical shrub with bright yellow flowers, red stamens and year-round blooms. In Hawaii, this Mexico and Central America native adds cheerful color to warm garden areas.

Gardenia

Gardenia is a fragrant white flower often used in Hawaii lei making, gardens and floral displays. This sweet-scented shrub thrives in warm, humid places and can grow up to 6 feet tall.

Glory Bush

Glory bush is a striking plant with deep purple flowers, red buds and green leaves with silvery undersides. In Hawaii, this beautiful plant needs caution because it can spread aggressively and crowd native landscapes.

Heliconia

Heliconia is a bold tropical flower related to banana, with tall leaf stalks and colorful bracts that hold small flowers. In Hawaii, many heliconia species bring bright color to gardens and rainforest-style landscapes.

Hibiscus

Hibiscus is Hawaii's state flower and one of the Islands' most familiar tropical blooms, with native ma'o hau hele, colorful garden hybrids and large blossoms seen in yards, parks and landscapes.

Impatiens

Impatiens is a colorful garden flower that can form dense beds of red, orange, pink or white blooms. In Hawaii's warm climate, it can flower year-round in moist, shaded garden areas.

Ixora

Ixora is a compact tropical flower with bright clusters that bloom often in Hawaii. Landscapers use it for coastal gardens, low hedges, borders, cut flowers and lei.

Lantana

Lantana has bright yellow and orange flower clusters, but in Hawaii this thorny flower can spread into thick, difficult thickets. Biologists have even used insects that parasitize lantana to help control it.

Lilikoi

Lilikoi is Hawaii's name for passion fruit, a climbing vine with intricate flowers and tart, fragrant fruit. At least 11 lilikoi species grow in Hawaii, though only two produce edible fruit.

Mock Orange

Mock orange has sweet white flowers, dense green foliage and red berries that look pretty but are not edible. In Hawaii, gardeners often trim it into fragrant hedges and borders.

Montbretia

Montbretia is a hardy orange flower found on all Hawaiian islands, with blooms that line green stems in a zigzag pattern. It does not produce fertile seeds and spreads through underground corms.

Morning Glory

Morning glory belongs to the Ipomoea group, which includes about 500 species worldwide and 14 native species in Hawaii. This flower family connects shoreline vines, edible ung-choi and sweet potato.

Night-blooming Cereus

Night-blooming cereus arrived in Hawaii in 1830 aboard the sailing ship Ivanhoe. This climbing cactus opens huge yellow-white flowers in the evening, releases a spicy fragrance and withers by the next day.

Oleander

Oleander brings fragrant pink, rose, red or white flowers to sunny coastal landscapes, even where wind, salt and dry weather challenge many garden plants. In Hawaii, it is useful but must be handled carefully because all parts are poisonous.

Orchid

Learn about orchids in Hawaii, from colorful Dendrobium lei flowers to backyard and garden varieties. Orchids bring long-lasting blooms, elegant shapes and tropical color to homes, landscapes and floral displays.

Persian Shield

Persian Shield brings bold purple-lavender color from its leaves rather than showy flowers. In Hawaii, this tropical foliage plant grows best in shaded garden beds and protected landscape areas.

Pikake

Pikake is a fragrant white jasmine flower treasured in Hawaii lei making. Its Hawaiian name means “peacock,” a nod to the birds Princess Kaiulani loved.

Pineapple

Pineapple, called hala kahiki in Hawaiian, became one of Hawaii's most famous crops. By the mid-20th century, Hawaii produced about 80 percent of the world's pineapple.

Pink Mandevilla

Pink mandevilla is a climbing tropical flower with glossy leaves and soft pink, bell-shaped blooms. In Hawaii, it grows best with a fence or trellis for support and steady watering.

Pink Powderpuff

Pink Powderpuff is a fluffy pink flower from Bolivia that Hawaii residents call lehua haole, or “foreign lehua.” Its soft, round blossoms resemble the native ohia lehua flower.

Plumbago

Plumbago brings soft blue or white flowers to Hawaii gardens with very little fuss. Native to South Africa, this easy-growing flower blooms often and is commonly used for hedges and planted areas.

Plumeria

Plumeria is one of Hawaii's classic lei flowers, loved for its sweet scent, smooth petals and easy stringing. Its colorful blossoms brighten flower lei, home gardens and familiar island landscapes.

Poinsettia

Poinsettia is famous as Mexico's Christmas flower, but in Hawaii it can grow outdoors into a tall garden plant. The bright red, white or salmon “flowers” are actually colorful leaves surrounding tiny yellow-green blooms.

Prickly Pear

Prickly pear is a tree-sized cactus known in Hawaiian as panini, meaning “very unfriendly wall.” In drier parts of Hawaii, its flat green pads carry sharp spines and red or yellow-green fruit.

Protea

Protea is a long-lasting flower that can look good for weeks in a vase and still keep its shape when dried. In Hawaii, these bold blooms are prized for floral arrangements, dried displays and sunny upland gardens.

Queen Emma Lily

Queen Emma Lily carries a royal Hawaii connection through Queen Emma, wife of King Kamehameha IV. A devoted gardener, she favored this shade-loving flower, which prefers moist, protected places.

Red Ginger

Red ginger looks like one bold red flower, but the showy red parts are bracts. The true flowers are small and white, tucked near the top of this humid-loving tropical plant.

Shrimp Plant

Shrimp plant gets its name from orange-red overlapping bracts that curve like a little shrimp. In Hawaii, this tropical flower adds unusual color, shape and texture to warm, partly shaded gardens.

Silversword

Silversword, or ahinahina, is a rare Hawaiian plant found only in the high volcanic regions of Haleakala and Mauna Kea. Its silver leaves reflect harsh sun, and it blooms only once near the end of its life.

Sugarcane

Sugarcane, or ko, is a large grass brought to Hawaii by early Polynesians, who had names for 40 different varieties. It later shaped Kauai plantations and Hawaii's sugar industry.

Taro

Taro, or kalo, is one of Hawaii's most important canoe plants and a staple food of ancient Hawaiians. Its starchy root is cooked and pounded into poi, while the leaves can be cooked as nourishing greens.

Tuberose

Tuberose is a fragrant cream-colored flower used in Hawaii for flower lei, bouquets and floral displays. Native to Mexico, it grows from underground stems and prefers moist, well-drained soil.

Turks Cap

Turks Cap is a hibiscus relative with bright scarlet flowers that stay partly closed instead of opening wide. The curled petals give each flower its small cap-like shape.

Wax Vine

Wax vine is a delicate climbing flower with thick leaves and fragrant pink-and-white blossoms that look almost waxy. In Hawaii, it grows best with shade and support for its trailing stems.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What kinds of flowers grow in Hawaii?

Hawaii has native flowers, lei flowers, tropical ornamentals and introduced garden plants. Popular examples include hibiscus, plumeria, pikake, gardenia, tuberose, heliconia, red ginger, orchid and crown flower.

What is Hawaii's state flower?

Hawaii's state flower is the yellow hibiscus, known as ma'o hau hele. Hibiscus flowers are strongly associated with the Islands and come in many colors and varieties.

Which Hawaiian flowers are used for lei?

Common lei flowers include plumeria, pikake, tuberose, gardenia, orchid, crown flower and pakalana. Lei makers choose flowers for fragrance, beauty, durability and cultural meaning.

Are all Hawaiian flowers native?

No. Many flowers seen in Hawaii are introduced ornamentals from tropical regions around the world. Hawaii also has native and endemic flowering plants, some of which are rare and need protection.

Where can I see tropical flowers in Hawaii?

Botanical gardens, hotel grounds, parks, neighborhoods, hiking areas and farmers markets are good places to see tropical flowers in Hawaii. Wet windward areas often have especially lush flowering plants.

What are the most fragrant flowers in Hawaii?

Some of Hawaii's most fragrant flowers include pikake, plumeria, gardenia, tuberose, puakenikeni and pakalana. These flowers are often used in lei because their scent is part of the experience.