The Amy B. H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden is a Hawaiian botanical garden near

Captain Cook, Hawaii Captain Cook is a census-designated place (CDP) in Hawaii County, Hawaii, in the United States, located in the District of South Kona. The community, within the land division of Kealakekua, is so named because the post office for the area was lo ...

in the

Kona District Kona is a ''moku'' or district on the Big Island of Hawaii in the State of Hawaii, known for its Kona coffee and the location of the Ironman World Championship Triathlon. In the current system of administration of Hawaii County, the ''moku'' o ...

on the

Big Island of Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii ) is the List of islands of the United States by area, largest island in the United States, located in the U.S. state, state of Hawaii. It is the southeasternmost of the Hawaiian Islands, a chain of High island, volcanic ...

. The gardens closed for the public on January 31, 2016. They are slated to re-open on February 29, 2020. The garden is now open to the public every Sunday from 9 am to 2 pm.

Description

The garden is owned by a community nonprofit called Friends of Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden. It is located at uphill (''mauka'') of the Hawaii Belt Road, known as Māmalahoa Highway or Hawaii Route 11, on the western slope of Mauna Loa. Amy Beatrice Holdsworth Greenwell was born in 1920. Her father was Arthur Leonard Greenwell (1871–1951) and mother was Beatrice Hunt Holdsworth (1891–1981). She was one of the 23 grandchildren of

Henry Nicholas Greenwell Henry Nicholas Greenwell (9 January 1826 – 18 May 1891) was an English merchant credited with establishing Kona coffee as an internationally known brand. His family became major land-holders in the Kona District of the island of Hawaii. The G ...

(1826–1891), who arrived in Hawaii in the 1850s and became a successful merchant and rancher in the area. Her maternal grandparents were merchant Edmund William Holdsworth and Edith Mary Winifred Purvis (1860–1950), who was a first cousin of Annie Oliphant Cornelia Purvis (1870–1947), great-great-grandmother of 23rd Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, and a distant cousin of

William Herbert Purvis William Herbert Purvis (November 27, 1858 – December 31, 1950) was a plant collector and investor in a sugarcane plantation on the island of Hawaii during the late nineteenth century. William Herbert Purvis (also known as Herbert Purvis) w ...

, a plant collector on the other side of the island. Greenwell attended

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

where she became a member of Gamma Phi Beta and served as a nurse in World War II. After the war she worked with Otto Degener of the New York Botanical Garden on a book series titled ''Flora Hawaiiensis'' on Hawaiian plants. From 1953 to 1957 she served on a Historical Site Commission for the Territory. She performed archaeology studies of early habitation sites of Hawaii including

Ka Lae Ka Lae ( haw, the point), also known as South Point, is the southernmost point of the Big Island of Hawaii and of the 50 United States. The Ka Lae area is registered as a National Historic Landmark District under the name South Point Complex. ...

(South Point), and wrote other books on tropical plants. Later in her lifetime she transformed her property by planting native and Polynesian-introduced plants in the extant Hawaiian agricultural areas. She left the garden to the Bishop Museum on her death in 1974 to be opened to the public. The museum closed the gardens to the public on January 31, 2016, and is trying to sell the land. The garden is slated to re-open on February 29, 2020. Today the garden contains over 200 species of endemic, indigenous, and Polynesian-introduced plants that grew in Kona before Captain

James Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...

's arrival. On Sundays the garden is open from 9 am. until 2 pm. and it is sometimes possible to take a guided tour during which the use and significance of the more important plants are explained. The garden's landscape includes four ecological zones: coastal, dry forest, agricultural, and

upland forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucial f ...

. Its native insect house features the

Kamehameha butterfly The Kamehameha butterfly (''Vanessa tameamea'') is one of the two species of butterfly endemic to Hawaii, the other is '' Udara blackburni''. The Hawaiian name is ''pulelehua''. This is today a catch-all native term for all butterflies; its orig ...

(''Vanessa tameamea''). The garden sponsors a farmers' market known as the South Kona green Market on Sundays. It was originally held at the adjacent

County of Hawaii Hawaii County ( haw, Kalana o Hawaiʻi) (officially known as the County of Hawaii) is a county in the U.S. state of Hawaii in the Hawaiian Islands. It is coextensive with the Island of Hawaii, often called the "Big Island" to distinguish it fro ...

park named for Arthur Leonard Greenwell, but is now held a few hundred feet to the southeast at the Kealakekua Ranch Center, named for the former Arthur Leonard Greenwell family ranch which extended up the mountain, overlooking Kealakekua Bay. Across the highway the

Kona Coffee Living History Farm Kona Coffee Living History Farm is located on the Daisaku Uchida Coffee Farm, in the Kona District, on the Big Island of Hawaii. The historic Kona coffee farm was established in 1900. The open-air agriculture museum depicts the daily lives o ...

run by the Kona Historical Society preserves a

Kona coffee Kona coffee is the market name for coffee ('' Coffea arabica'') cultivated on the slopes of Hualalai and Mauna Loa in the North and South Kona Districts of the Big Island of Hawaii. It is one of the most expensive coffees in the world. Only coff ...

farm that was another part of the Greenwell landholdings. In November 2019, the Friends of Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden announced their successful purchase of the land from the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum. The organization plans to perpetuate the cultural and educational legacy of the garden. The garden will re-open to the public on February 29, 2020.

Description

Family tree

See also