Pīkake, known in English as Arabian jasmine and scientifically as Jasminum sambac, is a fragrant white flower found throughout Hawaiʻi — though it is not originally from there. Native to South Asia and Southeast Asia, it was introduced to Hawaiʻi in the 1800s and quickly became one of the most beloved plants in the islands — not for its appearance alone, but for its scent.
The name pīkake is the Hawaiian word for peacock. Princess Kaʻiulani, the beloved heir to the Hawaiian throne, lived at her family's Waikīkī estate, ʻĀinahau, where peacocks roamed freely alongside the jasmine she adored. She named the flower after the bird, and the name stayed.
Pīkake found its place in lei making almost immediately. The small white blossoms are strung closely together to create lei that are as much about fragrance as they are about beauty. A fresh pīkake lei releases its scent for hours, and many people associate the smell with celebration—graduations, weddings, hula performances, and homecomings. It remains one of the most requested lei flowers in Hawaiʻi to this day.
For me, pīkake is my sisters. Both of them were May Day queens, and pīkake is their favorite lei flower. Whenever I smell it, I'm brought right back to those moments — and to every special occasion since where I've found a way to incorporate it for them, in some shape or form. At Kākou Collective, that's the kind of connection we hope to honor — the way a flower can hold a memory, a person, a whole feeling.
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