Hawaii Natural History

Solanaceae Nothocestrum latifolium

• Federally endangered!
•  Early Hawaiians used to finish off canoes and house construction
• Fruits sometimes eaten
• Medicinally used by pounding leaves, bark, and tap root, mixing with water, heating with hot rocks and cooled to treat abcesses

Agavaceae Pleomele forbesii

• Federally endangered!
•  Hawaiian name = Halapepe
• Endemic to Hawaii!
• Soft wood used by early Hawaiians to make idols and decorate alters
• Leaves also used in bathing and steam baths for chills, headaches, fever, and it was thought to stop burning temperatures
• Modern use = lei making

 

Urticaceae Pipturus albidus

• Hawaiian name = mamake, waimea
• Native Hawaiians beat the inner bark into fine kapa cloth
• Leaves and bark made into calming tea (still used today!)
• Endemic stingless nettle

Malvaceae Sida fallax

• Hawaiian name = ilima
• red/golden flower honored in song
• Queen Emma and Princess Kaiulani favored the ilima lei
• Also used by early Hawaiians medicinally
• chewing buds alleviates thirst and relieves birth pains 

 

Malvaceae Hibiscus kokio

• Hawaiian name = kokio
•  Native Hawaiian used as an invisibility aid
• dye from bark made nets and lines hard for fish to see underwater
•  Also used medicinally as a tonic for children

 

Myrtaceae Metrosideros polymorpha

• Hard wood used for kapa beaters, poi boards, spears and canoe gunwales
• Hawaiian name = Lehua, Ohia Lehua
• In ancient times, a lehua was the first and finest warrior sent into battle
• Native Hawaiians observed that on a barren lava flow, this was first tree to establish
• Can be a creeping shrub or tree
• Firework-burst flowers