Scope of Coverage
The plants enumerated in this checklist are those species grown for ornamental and landscape purposes by home gardeners. Plant categories included are shade trees, fruit and nut trees, street trees, palms, ornamentals of all types, lawn grasses, bamboos, ground covers, vegetables and herbs, cut flowers and those used to make lei, houseplants and container plants, and an array of specialty groups that are popular with hobbyists, such as orchids, bromeliads, succulents and cacti, aquatic plants for water gardens, heliconias and gingers, and others. In short, the focus is on species grown for amenity horticulture.
More than 2,100 species of plants included in the checklist have descriptions and further information in A Tropical Garden Flora (Staples & Herbst 2005) and/or In Gardens of Hawaii (Neal 1965). Links to specimen data and images are available through this website and more data are being added all the time.
What has been omitted from this checklist are all species not known to be deliberately
cultivated in home gardens; these groups include weeds, forestry tree plantings, pasture
and forage grasses, and native and naturalized species that exist outside of cultivation.
References that provide detailed information about at least
some of these plant groups include:
- Native and naturalized flowering plants, including many weeds: Wagner et al. (1999)
- Native and naturalized ferns and fern allies (pteridophytes): Palmer (2003)
- Trees planted for reforestation: Little & Skolmen (1989)
- Agricultural weeds: Motooka et al. (2003), Haselwood & Motter (1983)
- Pasture and forage grasses: Rotar (1968), Herbst & Clayton (in prep.)
