For our third weekend in O‘ahu, we went on a hike at Palehua-Palikea ridge, which is in the Wai‘anae mountains We were lucky enough to have Dr. Cliff Morden, a professor of botany and plant sciences at UHM, give us access to the trail and guide us along it. We stopped a number of times along the hike to allow him to tell us about the plant species present on the ridge. We learnt which plants were invasive to the island, such as the strawberry guava bush and ironwood tree which grew all along the trail. Towards the top of the ridge, there have been many efforts to promote the growth of native species, especially those which are endangered or have gone extinct in the wild. The area is protected and conservation groups use it to plant endangered native species in an attempt to revive their populations. Some of the native species we saw were Cyanea grimsiana, which grows in a tall stalk with leaves at the top, and Naupaka flowers, which appear to be split in half. We also learned the legend describing how this characteristic came about in the flower thanks to Krystalyn, a native Hawaiian member of our program. Along the hike, there were many places to stop and look at the beautiful view of Māmala Bay and Pearl Harbor as well as Wai‘anae on the other side of the ridge. Overall, the landscape was a lot more arid and had more chaparral plants than I was expecting. It was interesting seeing how different the opposite sides of the island are and how many plants which are present everywhere are in fact not native to the island.