2011
June 27 - "Waimea Valley’s Ogasawara Collection Offers Rare Glimpse at Botanical Features of Islands Recently Designated as World Heritage Site" posted on Waimea Valley Facebook Page.
“Keith Wooliams, former Waimea Arboretum Director, visited The Bonin Islands in 1973 and 1975 to collect plants and survey flora, which is the source of our Ogasawara Collection - all wild collected plants,” said Josie Hoh, Botanical Gardens Manager. “At least 26 endemic Ogasawara species have relatives in Hawaiian Flora.”
2009
June - "Ogasawara Islands have human, plant ties to Hawai'i". Lisa Asato article in the Mid-Month Extra Edition of Hawai'i's Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA)'s Ka Wai Ola Loa (The Living Water of OHA) newsletter.
"...The man responsible for bringing them here was former Waimea Arboretum director Keith Wooliams, who in the 1970s went on the first collection expeditions there (where he also retrieved the piece of wood being used for the sign). The remoteness of the archipelago – located 620 miles south of Tokyo – allowed animals and plants to uniquely evolve with more than 100 kinds of indigenous plants and more than 14 kinds of animals that are native to the Islands.
Wooliams' plant collection from those trips is the source of the Ogasawara Collection. They're "all wild collected plants," said Josie Hoh, botanical gardens manager, noting that at least 26 endemic Ogasawara species have relatives in Hawaiian flora, such as hibiscus, hala and a perfumed, viny relative of the maile family. "And taro too," said Hoh. "We have Ogasawara taro, about three or four of them here."
2005
May 27 - "Fragrant white hibiscus easy to grow". Heidi Bornhorst blog entry on thehonoluluadvertiser.com.
"On a recent visit from the Waimea Arboretum on the North coast of Oahu, Hawaii, Keith Wooliams, who with Garry Powell has developed a hibiscus evolution garden, expressed very considerable surprise at the enormous variety of old and new hybrids that we have in Fiji."
2004
March - "Hibiscus in Fiji" by R.H. Phillips in Hibiscus International (Vol 4, No., 1)
"On a recent visit from the Waimea Arboretum on the North coast of Oahu, Hawaii, Keith Wooliams, who with Garry Powell has developed a hibiscus evolution garden, expressed very considerable surprise at the enormous variety of old and new hybrids that we have in Fiji."
2003
April 23 - "Plant a chayote squash and a vine will sprout". Heidi Bornhorst blog entry on thehonoluluadvertiser.com.
"Waimea ... Director emeritus Keith Wooliams as a brilliant horticulturist, and thanks to him, many of the rarest of the rare still grow and thrive at Waimea. Wooliams had the foresight to form the Waimea Arboretum Foundation in 1977, which became the employer of the garden's plant scientists, and allowed the propagation and plant record-keeping to be continued after these were cut from the park's payroll at the end of 1998. Vital maps, plant labels and records were kept up to date on a shoestring budget by dedicated staffers and volunteers like David Orr, Frani Okamoto, Cilla Lang, Erin Purple, Cissy Ufano and Linda Bard..."
2002
March 10 - "Native habitat of our state flower belies its splendor" by Heidi Bornhorst on thehonoluluadvertiser.com.
"Jimmy and Nellie Pang searched the area for weeks and found a scraggly plant that might be it. They brought it to Waimea Arboretum, and director Keith Wooliams identified it as mao hau hele. This was a happy day for Hawaiian plant lovers. Waimea nurtured the sad plant from the wild and propagated more. They shared it with other botanical gardens."
2001
October 14 - "Portraits from extinction’s brink" (Cover Story), Honolulu Star Bulletin Features. archives.starbulletin.com.
"For more than 60 years, Cooke's progeny was the very last of the once abundant tree until Keith Woolliams from Waimea Arboretum took an interest in the 1970s in saving the Kokia cookei. A brush fire that swept through Cooke's back yard killed his tree, but as luck would have it, Woolliams had collected its seeds a few months earlier.
Woolliams succeeded in sprouting one seedling. But when it matured, its seeds were infertile and could not produce another generation of trees. His effort to grow new trees from cuttings and air-layering failed.
Finally, a few of his experiments worked after he grafted cuttings onto a related species from the Big Island. Those grafts led to more grafts, and the Kokia cookei was saved -- at least for now. Currently, there are 15 Kokia cookei, all of which are grafts with no genetic variability, leaving them vulnerable to diseases and pests."
