While it’s an obvious play off John Hall’s excellent book, my ambitions are much humbler than his. Highlighting native plants on one trail is enough for me. On a whim, I decided to do a short 3-4 hr hike up to the Ko’olau summit via the Hawai’i Loa Ridge trail to check out the native plant life. It’s short relative to my typical all-day hikes anyway.
Here’s another species of Hulumoa (Korthalsella complanata). K. complanata is the most common of the Hawaiian mistletoes. It is also found on a wider variety of host plants than the other species. Here it is on Ahakea lau nui (Bobea elatior). This species is quite variable vegetatively, but on Bobea hosts, it looks strikingly similar to K. latissima on Mt. Ka’ala. I’ll be honest, I don’t think I can spot the differences; I know K. latissima branches more sparingly than K. complanata. Perhaps more time in the field will help…
*From Manual of the Flowering Plants of Hawai’i
Approaching Cyaneas
We hiked several gulches in the Mokule’ia forest preserve to check out the native plants in the area. This part of the northern Wai’anaes has some nice native forest that are still fairly species rich. Let’s see how things have changed since the days Hathaway and Degener hiked these areas.
A majority of these botany hikes I go on have been with Joel and Kenji. It has been a real privilege because they are both walking encyclopedias of the biota here in Hawai’i. So much of what I have learned is because of these guys. This past weekend we went to check out an interesting patch of Ohia forest in the hills behind Pupukea.
First off, I would like to congratulate my good friend Art for getting his Master’s degree. I was at his graduation party on Sunday at The Oahu Club in Hawai’i Kai to celebrate. I actually had no plans this weekend for hiking and surveying. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary at first: some of his guests were swimming, some were playing tennis. My friends and I were poolside taking in the Jets/Steelers game on the nearest flatscreen TV and drinking beer.
We made our way down to the lawn when the food was ready when, much to my surprise, a family of Hawaiian Moorhens (Gallinua chloropus sandvicensis) appeared!
The nice thing about many of the windswept summits on O’ahu is that there are still many fairly intact native plant communities there. But by their very nature, surveying on the summits is difficult work. Nothing frustrates me more than barely making out an awesome native plant 40 feet below the summit trail on an inaccessible cliff. Which is why being on Ka’ala was such a joy. No knife-edge summit here, just acres of fairly flat plateau. It makes looking for rare native plants all the more easier. Let’s get right into it.
Hawaiian nettles are another strange product of that engine known as island evolution. Nettles (Urtica spp.) are well known around the world for their stinging hairs which are a major deterrent for herbivores (or the random off-trail hiker). I’m glad I never encountered the Common Nettle (Urtica dioica) while playing outdoors in Chicago. Stinging hairs aren’t necessarily basal to the family, but anytime traits are secondarily lost, it always gets my attention. Always. Nettle-less nettles… I want to know more!
I think most people picture lush tropical rain forest when they think of Hawai’i, full of waterfalls and rainbows. But there are other types of plant communities found here. One dominant type being dryland forests found mostly on the leeward sides of each island. And even though O’ahu is the most populated of the islands, it has some of the most diverse dryland forest in the entire chain.
A few weeks back, I went with a few experience hikers and botanists to check out a few gulches in the Wai’anae Kai area that are still predominantly native. Even with all the general habitat destruction, dryland forest here have been especially hard hit. The hospitable climates of dry forest attracted a lot of human development from the start. As a consequence, there aren’t very many areas of pristine dry forest left in the state.
*From Manual of the Flowering Plants of Hawai’i
Studia Mirabilium 