Maui has countless lush flowering plants. Exotic blossoms seem to be everywhere.

But for many people, Maui's most striking plants are its trees, especially its palms. Their foliage -- fronds with broad arrays of sharply defined leaflets that fan out geometrically -- is graphically striking, especially when viewed in silhouette. The fronds seem alive. They appear to anticipate faint breezes. They arc and bend gracefully as wind increases; gusts provoke them into frenzied motion, as if they are undecided whether to stay and resist and persevere or to pull free and escape. Their movements in wind seem more directed, more coherent, than the unfocused flutterings of birch or aspen leaves. They move as if sentient, as if motivated by some ambition to dance and flex gracefully in consort with their leaflet neighbors. Visually they contrast starkly with their surroundings, and are often silhouetted against markedly dissimilar backdrops. As if insisting that they be the center of attention, they tend to dominate the scene, even when their long, slender trunks and elevated fronds are spindly against the expanse of sky and the earthly bulk and mass as the island rises on its volcanic flanks. Their shadows interpret, but alter, their lines and movements, exaggerating the striations and compressing the confusion of overlapping leaflets. Details of their trunks offer comic relief to the formal grace of their foliage. Ultimately they seem to promise escape and peace and tame exotica to Mainlanders reduced to dreaming of the Islands, an offer of 1930's romance and innocence. 

The geometry of palm fronds and leaflets:

131A0181 131A1381-2 131A2481-2

Even tattered leaflets retain their grace.
131A3323-2

Palms seem to be silhouetted even when they are not formal silhouettes.

131A2941 131A3294-2 131A1195 131A2984

 Black and white conversions accentuate their graphic appeal,   131A1430-Edit copy 131A1430-Edit-11-Edit-Edit-3

and potentially recall the romance and now-lost innocence of the 1930s, as filtered through recollections altered by Hollywood movies.

131A1430-Edit-11-Edit-Edit-6

Their shadows are interpretations, not exact copies.

131A3313

Even the non-frond details are arresting. 
131A1084-Edit-3-2 131A1272-2 131A2956