If you often pass Foster Botanical Garden on your daily commute or visit the Queen's Medical Center, you might not be familiar with the 19th-century man who connects the two Honolulu sites.
This weekend, among the exceptional trees at the botanical garden, a play will treat attendees to the backstory — or, as arborists like to say, the understory.
Local thespian Craig Howes brings to life the character of botanist and Queen's physician Dr. William Hillebrand. Howes, acting as Hillebrand, spoke with The Conversation.
During his 20 years in Hawaiʻi, Hillebrand was the chief physician — the only physician — at Queen's. He also fostered a passion for botany throughout, introducing many plants that are now associated with the islands. The most famous might be the plumeria.
Some of the trees he introduced and planted are still at his former residence, on land that is now Foster Botanical Garden.
"That was where my wife Anna and I made our home in 1855, and I expanded over the years to contain my, dare I say, magnificent garden," Howes as Hillebrand said.
"I was very familiar with Mary Foster because I ultimately sold our property to the Fosters, her husband Thomas and Mrs. Foster, who had a great love for gardens and plants and all the natural world. I left Hawaiʻi in 1871 and returned to Germany and sadly never returned," he added.
Hillebrand died in 1886 in Germany at age 64.
Howes, as Hillebrand, said Mary Foster did a remarkable job of maintaining the garden and eventually deeding it to the city.
"It was then taken over by Harold Lyon, who did a great job of maintaining the garden and protecting it from development and other ideas that the city might have had in mind for turning it into something very different," Howes as Hillebrand said.
Hillebrand, Foster and Lyon are the characters in an interactive play, "The Beginning of the Garden," on Saturday and Sunday. The performances are presented by the Friends of Honolulu Botanical Gardens.
HPR contributor Neal Milner will reprise his role as Lyon, and Victoria Kneubuhl will transform into Foster.
Call 808-537-1708 or email friendsofhbg@gmail.com for reservations.
This interview aired on The Conversation on Nov. 15, 2023. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1. Sophia McCullough adapted this story for the web.
