Waimea Valley - Historical Nature Park

Historical Nature Park

Formerly known as the Waimea Valley Audubon Center and the Waimea Arboretum and Botanical Garden, the Waimea Valley is a historical nature park including botanical gardens. It is located at 59-864 Kamehameha Highway, Haleiwa, Oahu, Hawaii and is open daily except for Christmas and New Year's Day; an admission fee is charged.

The garden was managed until 2003 by the City and County of Honolulu, when management was assumed by the National Audubon Society. In 2008, management was handed over to Hi'ipaka LLC, a non-profit company created by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

The garden now contains 35 distinct collections, representing some 5,000 taxa from around the world. It contains one of the finest collections of Polynesian plants in existence, as well as excellent collections of very rare Hawaiian plants, rare and endangered species native to Lord Howe Island, and individual gardens dedicated to plants from Guam, Madagascar, the Mascarene Islands, the Ogasawara Islands, and the Seychelles.

Other major collections include the hibiscus evolutionary garden, araceae, bauhinia, bromeliaceae, heliconia, liliaceae, as well as bamboo, begonia, ferns, tropical fruit, etc.

The garden valley is approximate 0.75 miles in length, with a small waterfall and swimming hole at the valley's high end.

Read more about this topic:  Waimea Valley

Famous quotes containing the words historical, nature and/or park:

    The past itself, as historical change continues to accelerate, has become the most surreal of subjects—making it possible ... to see a new beauty in what is vanishing.
    Susan Sontag (b. 1933)

    There are souls that are incurable and lost to the rest of society. Deprive them of one means of folly, they will invent ten thousand others. They will create subtler, wilder methods, methods that are absolutely DESPERATE. Nature herself is fundamentally antisocial, it is only by a usurpation of powers that the organized body of society opposes the natural inclination of humanity.
    Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)

    Is a park any better than a coal mine? What’s a mountain got that a slag pile hasn’t? What would you rather have in your garden—an almond tree or an oil well?
    Jean Giraudoux (1882–1944)