"In what manner the place name Nawiliwili took its origin is lost in the mist of legend. But somewhat as Honolulu was originally called Ke Awa o Kou, or Kou Landing, from the groves of that seaside tree known there in primitive times, so not only this southeasterly bay of Kaua'i, together with the stream emptying into it from its sources near Kilohana Crater, but also the land division covering this stream and its tributaries, took their name from the blossoms of the wiliwili trees which grew in great numbers on the rocky slopes above the bay.
One of the first things that William Hyde Rice saw on landing in this bay in 1854, as a boy of eight, was the orange-red flash of wiliwili blossoms on trees clinging to the cliff above the beach. And one of the last things he did for his beloved home island was to plant young wiliwili trees above the bay, that the significance of its name might be kept in fresh remembrance. The Hawaiian wiliwili is the species of Erythrina known as monosperma, or one-seeded, which one frequently met with throughout Polynesia. In former years it was very abundant in the Hawaiian Islands on dry hillsides otherwise often quite barren. Its oblong seeds of bright red, the pod seldom contains more than one, were sought by Hawaiian women for necklaces and gleamed like rubies on their fibre string. The wood, light as cork, was often carved into olo-hu, or spinning tops, and was the favorite material for the outriggers of fishing canoes, according to the folklore of William Hyde Rice.
Rev. Mr. Ellis, the English missionary from the Society Islands, writes of the branches of the 'viri viri trees being frequently used for fence posts, on account of the readiness with which they take root when planted in the ground, and of its wood being employed for the carved stools placed under canoes when drawn up on the beach, and also for the best kind of surf boards, because the wood is lighter than any other which the natives possess.
The odd blossom of the wiliwili, varying from red and orange to pale yellow, opens out in numbers of pointed, hook-shaped fingers around a central stem of green-brown buds, each bloom flinging back its threadlike stamens until the cluster not a little resembles a tiger's hairy claw. Such, indeed, it is often called, or in India, the coral tree."
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