Foster Botanical Garden

This garden in Honolulu grew out of a friendship struck in 1893 between Mary Foster, a grieving widow whose husband had just died and whose queen had just been overthrown, and Anagarika Dharmapala, a wandering Buddhist reformer from Sri Lanka trying to save the ruins where the Buddha found enlightenment. The guide follows what she became after he taught her to meditate, the causes she quietly funded for decades, and the unusual gift he sent her in 1913 that still grows on these grounds. Look up as you walk beneath the canopy near the garden's heart.