The Wilhelmina Tenney Rainbow Shower Tree
During the summer months all over the Hawaiian Islands, thousands of trees in parks, along roads and in parking lots are covered with abundant bunches of colorful and slightly fragrant flowers. This is the Wilhelmina Tenney Rainbow Shower Tree, Cassia x nealiae, which since 1965 has been designated Honolulu’s official street tree.
With the realization that this tree bears the names of two women who lived much of their adult lives in committed lesbian relationships, and with the rainbow now a universal emblem of LGBTQ+ pride, this beautiful tree has taken on added meaning as a symbol of Honolulu’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
THE TREE
In the nineteenth century, numerous plants from other tropical climates were introduced to Hawaiʻi. Two of these examples were shower trees: Cassia fistula from Southeast Asia, with yellow flowers, and Cassia javanica from a large range in Asia, with pink and white flowers. While both of these were attractive while in bloom, at other times of the year they often looked scraggly and carried long woody seedpods. Regardless, these were widely planted.
In Honolulu, horticulturalists tried crossing these two species, and around 1920 a specimen growing in the front yard of Captain J. C. Lorenzen’s home on Lunalilo Street was given to his neighbor, Edward D. Tenney, a prominent business leader. It was called the rainbow shower tree since it incorporated the floral colors of both parent trees. In addition to being better looking overall, it bloomed far more copiously and did not produce unsightly seedpods. Although other crosses do exist, this particular hybrid became by far the most common rainbow shower tree.
The original tree was cut down in 1947, but one of its offspring was planted in the yard of the Tenneys’ daughter, Whilhelmina, who lived on Maikiki Heights Drive. Although that tree no longer survives, Wilhelmina donated a cutting from it to the Foster Botanical Garden in the late 1940s. Today a fifty foot tall Wilhelmina Tenney Shower Tree, as the cultivar was named, is one of the prize specimens at the Foster Botanical Garden’s Daibutso Terrace.
WILHELMINA TENNEY
Wilhelmina Tenney had a remarkable life that included two visible same-sex relationships at a time when lesbianism was considered a perversion. Born in 1891 in Honolulu, Oʻahu, Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, she lived the privileged childhood to be expected for the daughter of a prominent businessman who chaired the boards of the powerful Matson Navigation Company and Castle & Cooke. Her 11th birthday party was held on the grounds of St. Andrew’s Cathedral and attended by 400 children.
Wilhelmina grew up as a tomboy who gave herself the nickname “Peter”, which she was known by throughout her life. As a young woman, she golfed, played polo, partied, and travelled with a set of other wealthy debutantes from around the country. This is how she met Lois Brundred of the prominent Oil City, Pennsylvania, Brundred family, frequent house guests at the Tenney estate.
In 1917, the two girls volunteered for the American Red Cross in war-torn France. Initially serving as roaming canteen volunteers, they were ordered to the frontlines as regular soldiers attached to advanced aviation squadrons, where they pitched in as nurses. Their close relationship was clear from several articles published back home in the Honolulu press, which pictured Tenney and Brundred as “soldier girls” in masculine appearing army uniforms, and referred to Wilhelmina as “Peter girl.”
Tenney’s second longtime partner was a woman named Renee Halbedl who had been born in Los Angeles and worked as a nurse. They met during World War I in France, and by about 1930 were living together in Honolulu in Wilhelminaʻs Makiki Heights estate. They were frequently reported in the society pages as a couple attending teas, judging flower shows, and travelling to New York, Yosemite, and Europe.
Tenney was also an astute businesswoman who sat on the boards of several major enterprises, an unusual responsibility for a woman of that time, as well as a major donor to the Honolulu Academy of Art. She and Renee remained together until Wilhelminaʻs death in 1951
MARIE NEAL
Eventually the Wilhelmina Tenney Rainbow Shower received its own scientific Latin name, Cassia x nealiae. This latter name honors Bishop Museum botanist Marie C. Neal, who headed the Bishop Museum’s Botany department for 30 years, caring for the over 150,000 preserved plant specimens it contained.
Nealʻs first publication, “In Honolulu Gardens” from 1928, was surpassed by her lifetime project, “In Gardens of Hawaii,” published by Bishop Museum Press in 1948 and revised in 1965. This impressive volume of more than 900 pages listed many thousands of the known plants that were in cultivation in Hawaiʻi, including their traditional uses and cultural and religious significance.
Neal’s partner was Dr. Constance Hart, herself also a botanist and an expert in rose gardening. The couple was together in their Nuʻuanu home from about 1930 till Neal’s death in 1965.
Story by DeSoto Brown with additional research by Dean Hamer.