Top posts of 2011

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Sebastian Marquez

So wordpress.com gave me some really cool end of year stats for Studia Mirabilium. Quite the pleasant surprise to find in my inbox actually. From those metrics, I thought I would compile some of the top posts from the past year.

5) Loulu of La’ie – Hiking the northern Ko’olaus with the Pritchardia group

4) Birdwatching at ‘Iolani Palace – Checking out a surprising place to find native birds

3) The treasures of Hidden Valley – Volunteering with O’ahu PEP on the Windward side

2) Ko’olau Pride – Seeing rare plants in the wilds above Hawaii Kai

1) The hills have eyes… and really weird flowers – Checking the flora of the Wai’anaes

Also, the report showed that I had visitors from Mauritius, Tanzania and New Zealand… all places on my wish list to visit! I’d hope to see you in your neck of the woods soon. And to everybody that stopped by Studia Mirabilium in the past year… Thank You for indulging my quirky, quirky interests!

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Getting to know your Hawaiian Lobeliads #19: Clermontia persicifolia

Posted on January 1, 2012 by Sebastian Marquez

Clermontia persicifolia

  • Hawaiian Name: Oha wai
  • Conservation Status: Apparently Secure
  • Distribution: O’ahu
  • Date photographed: 12/31/2011
  • Ease of viewing: Medium
  • *Identification: Form– Terrestrial or epiphytic shrubs 2-6 m tall. Leaves– elliptic to oblanceolate; 7-16 cm long, 1.5-4 cm wide; petioles 2-7 cm long. Flower– hypanthium hemispherical, obconical, or oblong, 7-12 mm long, 6-8 mm wide; perianth greenish-white to white, 48-60 mm long, 5-8 mm wide, tube suberect to gently curved.
  • Phylogenetic comments: Of the different Clermontia spp. found on O’ahu, C. persicifolia is the only one restricted to the island.
  • My notes: There are several individuals along the Ka’au crater rim trail; they’re easy to see from the trail itself. Compared to the other Clermontia here, C. persicifolia has shinier, stiffer leaves. It’s not often that I’m still up on the mountains during the late afternoon. I spent some time photographing these while taking advantage of the light.
  • Links: Smithsonian Flora of the Hawaiian Islands, UH Botany, Native Hawaiian Plants- Clermontia
  • Additional Photos:

*From Manual of the Flowering Plants of Hawai’i

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The Wonders of Rediscovery

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Sebastian Marquez

I thought Christmas was over. I had just finished a post about the wonderful gift of being able to see rare Achatinella snails in the Ko’olaus. I’ll have to happily revise my Christmas gift. On a whim, Mashuri and I did a Christmas Eve hike into the back of Palolo Valley. We didn’t realize we would end up coming across a plant that had not been seen on the Ko’olau Volcano in over 20 years…

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Getting to know your Hawaiian Lobeliads #18: Cyanea humboldtiana

Posted on December 24, 2011 by Sebastian Marquez

Cyanea humboldtiana

  • Hawaiian Name: Haha
  • Conservation Status: Endangered
  • Distribution: O’ahu (Ko’olau range)
  • Date photographed: December 10, 2011
  • *Identification: Form– Stems woody, 1-2m long. Leaves– obovate to broadly elliptic; blades 18-45 cm long, 7-16 cm wide; upper surface glabrous, lower surface pubescent; petioles 3-4 cm long. Flower– hypanthium oblong to obconical, 8-12 mm long; calyx lobes oblong, 4-10 mm long; corolla dark magenta or rarely white, 6-7.5 cm long.
  • My notes: It seems strange that the manual describes the flowers being rarely white, yet every picture of C. humboldtiana I’ve found online shows white corollas.
  • Links: Smithsonian- Flora of the Hawaiian Islands, US Fish & Wildlife Cyanea humboldtiana 5-year review (pdf)

*From Manual of the Flowering Plants of Hawai’i

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Snapshot: Christmas at the Zoo

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Sebastian Marquez

Every year, I try to make it to the “Christmas at the Zoo” event here at the Honolulu Zoo. It always makes for interesting shots like this one. As discombobulating as seeing a Chimp drinking heartily from a Gatorade bottle is, their technique for opening it is even more interesting. The Chimps just twist it open with their teeth. What a set of jaw musculature! If this Chimpanzee gazed upon Yorick’s skull, there’ll be no lamenting to Horatio about a life lost and realizations about death; he’d merely snort at the lack of a sagittal crest. Puny Humans!

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Snapshot: Papala kepau

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Sebastian Marquez

Time for another comparison. The larger leaf on the left is the common species of Papala kepau (Pisona umbellifera) in the Ko’olaus. The one on the right is the rarer Pisona sandwicensis. As you can see, the leaf bases are much different. P. sandwicensis has a much more truncate leaf base and a better defined petiole, whereas P. umbellifera has a cuneate base and less of a petiole. Naturally, there are other differences as well. But I hope this helps in the field.

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Getting to know your Hawaiian Lobeliads #17: Cyanea pohaku

Posted on December 17, 2011 by Sebastian Marquez

Cyanea pohaku

  • Conservation Status: Extinct
  • Distribution: East Maui (Pu’unianiau)
  • Date photographed: October 11, 1910? (J.F. Rock)
  • *Identification: Form– Sparingly branched trees 6-7 m tall. Leaves– oblanceolate; blades 16-30 cm long by 1.5-4 cm wide; margins callose-crenulate; winged petioles 0.8-2 cm long. Flower– hypanthium obconical, 12-17 mm long; calyx lobes narrowly triangular, 4-7 mm long, 1-2 mm wide; corolla greenish-white, 30-45 mm long, 5-7 mm wide
  • Phylogenetic comments: Originally described by Rock as Clermontia haleakalensis,  it was later moved (Lammers, 1988) to Cyanea bearing the new name Cyanea pohaku.
  • My notes: How lucky are we that the great Joseph Rock was also an excellent photographer? One of the absolute strangest of the Hawaiian Lobeliads could have been lost forever in time without a trace; Rock was the only scientist to ever describe this species before its entire habitat was lost. Take a close look at the picture, C. pohaku has a fairly stout trunk, in the lower left of the photo is a hat to give some scale. It looks to be a 1-2 ft. girth at the base. Weird. C. pohaku was also known from one of the highest elevation ranges for Hawaiian Lobeliads at around 7,000 ft. Such a shame that it’s gone. At least we have a small set of photos so we know exactly what this long gone lobeliad looked like.
  • Links: A Monographic study of the Hawaiian species of the tribe Lobelioideae family Campanulaceae, The Indigenous Trees of the Hawaiian Islands
  • Additional Photos:

*From Manual of the Flowering Plants of Hawai’i

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Well, worked on some behind the scenes stuff today.

  • Added Joel Lau’s flickr page to the links. There aren’t too many places out there to get better up-to-date information on native flora than his page.
  • Added Hawai’i Loa Ridge to the Trailside plants page
  • Added Maile to various trails (Can’t believe I missed that one!)
  • Added Lobelia niihauensis to the Lobelia page
  • Finally, updated my blog header. Hope you guys enjoy it

By the way, is Carr’s UH botany page gone? That’s a lot of links I’ll have to go back and fix if it’s not there anymore.

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Sebastian Marquez | Leave a comment

Snapshot: Los del Rio’s Machaerina

Posted on December 12, 2011 by Sebastian Marquez

Don’t everybody start dancing all at once now. Of the 2 native Machaerina found in Hawai’i, Uki (Machaerina angustifolia) is more easily differentiated from M. mariscoides by being a typically larger plant and a deeper shade of green. I’ve usually seen M. angustifolia in wetter habitats than mariscoides but there is a lot of overlap.

Considering that I work with sedges that will give you thousands of cuts you painfully feel later (e.g. Cyperus javanicus & Carex wahuensis), it’s really nice to come across this pretty plant with such smooth edges. It’s the little thing in life I enjoy. And one hit wonders from the mid-90’s apparently.

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It’s a White Christmas from the Hawaiian Forest

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Sebastian Marquez

The holiday season is full of magic and warmth and giving, no matter where in the world you happen to be. But growing up in the Midwest, I’ve grown to miss the Christmas of my youth. This past hike into the Ko’olau range, the forest in its own unique way, let me relive some of that joyful past.

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