We were given these old photos by a family acquaintance. I remember rummaging through some old photos albums when I saw one that said Koke`e. I can’t remember if the dates were closer to 1910 or the 1920’s. Some of the photos showed they went up with pack horses if that is telling. Most of the photos were of the camping party itself, but a couple immediately caught my eye.
When I saw this photo, I noticed that they had captured a really nice shot of a mature Haha lua (Cyanea leptostegia). This is the tallest of the extant lobeliads with some individuals up to 30-40 ft tall.
As neat as seeing an old photo of our tallest native lobeliad is, I’m also really happy to get a glimpse into what native forests looked like 100 years ago. Photos like this help give me an image of what we are trying to restore.
April has been deemed Native Hawaiian Plant Month for some years now. While I’ve done posts in the past on various social media platforms, I don’t think I’ve ever done an overview. Indeed, if you do a google search, it is hard to find one.
I think it’s important, especially for people just getting into native plants. Mainly for the folks with an inkling of interest: what is all the fuss about? Why are there so many people out there who care so much about the flora that calls Hawai`i home? To me, it boils down to how distinctive the Hawaiian flora is compared to other regional plant communities. It just wonderfully stands apart.
I’ll break it down into the unique environment plants found in Hawai`i, where they came from, and what they did here.
For folks like me who dream of the fantastic extinct creatures of our recent past, I think we tend to overlook the creatures that are still alive today. I know I sometimes do. For all the marveling we do at the giant sauropod dinosaur fossils we see in museums, probably largest animal ever known (blue whales) still shares this planet with us. It’s one whale watching tour away. And as much as I wonder about the pretty `o`o birds (Moho spp.), Indian peafowl are absolutely stunning birds that I can see everyday at work.
I am luckily that I work at a site where I can see O`ahu `Amakihi every week. Lately I’ve been trying to photograph them more just to share my own encounters with them to a broader audience. For I think they are really neat birds.
People have viewed the new A.I. generated art with trepidations. While I can see problems moving forward, I immediately started salivating when I heard you can ask a bot a prompt and in seconds it could generate something.
Even though most of this blog is about the current restoration work I’m doing in native Hawaiian ecosystems, it is still influenced by an older passion I have for extinct megafauna. What would the world look like if not only were they still around, but happily coexisting with us?
I was working up at the site recently when I came upon one of our neat micromoths. This species (possibly Philodoria splendida) uses `Ohi`a Lehua as a host plant. The larva mine the leaves before emerging as these pretty little moths.
*Identification: : Form– Stems woody, erect, 15-30 dm long, leafy in upper 1/2. Leaves– narrowly elliptic to elliptic, 30-65 cm long, 2-10 cm wide, upper surface glabrous, lower surface densely white tomentose except midrib. Flower– calyx lobes subulate, 4-7 mm long; corolla blue, 28-32 mm long, 3-5 mm wide, pubescent, lobes spirally revolute.
Phylogenetic comments:2022 update — L. hypoleuca appears to be sister to the clade that include L. oahuensis and L. grayana.
My notes: I’ve come across this taxa sporadically, usually near the summits of hikes. It is one of the few taxa of Hawaiian lobeliads that is found through the main Hawaiian islands.
I had the privilege of seeing the monk seal pups in Waikiki the past few years. Seeing the young seals being raised by their mom adjacent to some of the most highly used shorelines in Hawai`i shows the challenges and possibilities of living with our native Hawaiian biota.
Have you ever witnesses some sort of natural phenomenon? It doesn’t have to be super rare; it could be Manhatten-henge, it could be the Queensland Morning Glory, a solar eclipse, an aurora, it could even be a rainbow. It doesn’t matter what you experienced, what matters for this post is that these phenomena only occur under certain conditions.
One way that a decade plus of active native reforestation has changed my perspective is I see native Hawaiian forest as less a place to visit or a thing to restore but rather as a system of interdependent relationships. One doesn’t go to a specific site to see native forests or post a 10 min YouTube rebuild video with a fully intact native forest at the end. To me, if you have the ongoing relationships between the soil, between the native pollinator, between the native seed disperser, etc, and those relationships are strong; you may have a chance to see native forests develop. In some ways I see native forests currently behaving more like an ephemeral natural phenomenon. If those conditions are in place the phenomenon of native forests can happen. What better way to see this in action than being able to restore one of those relationships with the release of an endangered native fly, Drosophila hemipeza.
*Identification: : Form– Stems woody, erect, 15-20 dm long, with dense apical rosette of leaves Leaves– linear, 24-35 cm long, 0.5-1.5 cm wide, lower surface white tomentose. Flower– calyx lobes subulate, 3-6 mm long; corolla blue to lilac, 36-40 mm long, 3-5 mm wide, lobes spirally revolute.
Phylogenetic comments:2022 update — L. yuccoides on O’ahu is possibly distinct from L. yuccoides on Kaua’i. The O’ahu taxa might be of hybrid origin between the Kaua’i taxa and something within the Lobelia niihauensis group.
My notes: I’ve only ever come across this taxa in the southern Wai’anae mtns. I have yet to see it in a reproductive state; the dense central stalk of flowers would be quite the impressive sight!
Here is another fern we have at the Manoa Cliff restoration site. ‘Okupukupu (Doodia kunthiana) is another endemic component to mesic-wet forest understories here in Hawai’i. It may be common in other areas, but I have not come across this species often on my hikes.
Having a 1-pinnate frond, D. kunthiana can easily by confused with the more common native swordfern (Nephrolepis exaltata var. hawaiiensis) Indeed, both species share common names in Hawaiian; ‘okupukupu, pamoho. (side note: ni’ani’au seems to be reserved only for Nephrolepis) But there are some ways to distinguish between the two.
Here are two fertile fronds of different ‘okupukupu: Nephrolepis exaltata on the left, Doodia kunthiana on the right. You can see that near the top of the Doodia frond it is actually pinnatifid. There is also a noticeable grove on the rachis of Doodia though I’m not sure if this is diagnostic for the species. I also don’t know if the difference in the color of the frond is a reliable indicator.
Taking a look at the abaxial surfaces you can see that the sori are much different. On N. exaltata they are kidney shaped while on D. kunthiana they more medial on the pinna and parallel to the costa.
Another thing to look at is the color of the new fronds. Like it’s native blechnaceae relative Sadleria, the new unfurling fronds on Doodia are a reddish color. You can see that in the photo at the top.
Anyway, this is a quick post on another member of our native Hawaiian flora. So next time you come across a strange looking kupukupu in the forest, take a closer look. It might be a different member of our native plant community from what you might be expecting.
Studia Mirabilium 