I made this image some years ago of a floor in the forest on the island of Molokai.
As you can see the floor is littered with Cook Pine needles in various shapes, forms and colors.
I actually used an old Nikon D 70 with a Sigma 18-55mm lens. The amount of detail that was pulled from the scene was astounding. It go oea to ahow that a high megapixel camera doesnt necessarily exhibit more sharpness.
The Cook Pine is native to New Caledonia, an island archipelago northeast of Australia and is most evident on the Isle de Pines.
The tree’s scientific taxonomy was first made by Johann Reinhold Forster, a botanist on Captain James Cook’s second round the world voyage. It is named directly for Captain Cook, and not for the Cook Islands. Cook never disembarked on the island.
This tree is truly unique in that it “leans” toward the equator from its base to its top. The reason for this mysterious anomaly is unknown and the further north in latitude the greater the tree leans. Most trees in Hawaii don’t exhibit this behavior because of the island’s proximity to the equator.