Every native plant on Kaua‘i, Hawai‘i’s fourth-largest island and Perlman’s home base, is a mind-blowing stroke of luck and chance. Each species there arrived on the island as a single seed floating at sea or flying in a bird’s belly from thousands of miles away—more than two thousand miles of open ocean sit between Kaua‘i and the nearest continent. Botanists believe one or two seeds made it every thousand years.
