KUKAENENE, Coprosma ernodioides A. Gray. [Fig. 15.] A common woody shrub with long trailing branches that send up short, erect, densely foliose branchlets at each node. The awl-shaped leaves are rigid and dark-green. The fruits are shiny black drupes which are a favorite food of the native goose, nene.
PILO, Coprosma montana Hillebr. [Fig. 14.] One of the commonest shrubs throughout the crater and from Park Headquarters to 9,000 feet outside the crater. It is a small tree up to 20 feet tall in Kaupo Gap. As a shrub the ascending tips look like jets shot up from densely foliose branchlets. The alternate, small, thick leaves have conspicuous nerves impressed on the upper face. Below each pair of leaves is a pair of triangular bracts, stipules, with cilia on the upper border. The greenish, inconspicuous flowers are followed by showy, bright orange, yellow, or red fruits which make the plant a subject attractive to color photographers in fall.
MANONO, Gouldia terminalis (H. & A.) Hillebr. A shrub or small tree growing on the talus above the Paliku cabins. It has shiny, opposite leaves and dense terminal clusters of greenish, four-lobed, cup-shaped flowers that are followed by small black berries. It blooms in late summer. The genus is one of three in the Coffee Family that are endemic to Hawaii.
CATCHFLY, Silene struthioloides A. Gray. [Fig. 16.] A plant that is typical only of arid Cinders and ash on East Maui and on the island of Hawaii. With the silversword as its companion in Haleakala Crater the plants are found at the bases of barren cones. They show neat adaptation to their stark home. The Haleakala plants, as illustrated, are low and compact, but those growing at Kilauea Crater bear only a few awl-shaped leaves and resemble dead twigs. The thick tap roots are sweet and edible. About 250 species belong to this genus, a member of the Pink or Carnation Family. A well-known introduced weed, the English catchfly, Silene anglica L., was reported by Degener at 10,000 feet on Haleakala.
’OHA, Labelia grayana E. Wimm. A low plant with woody trailing stems with knobby leaf scars and ending with a crowded arrangement of silvery, linear leaves, 4-8 inches long and crowned with densely flowered racemes, 6-15 inches long. The flowers are lilac-blue with a satiny sheen. The plant is not uncommon on wet pali from 5,000-7,000 feet at Paliku, Kaupo and Koolau Gaps, and in the northwestern end of the crater. It is a glorious plant worth hunting for and going miles to see.
NAUPAKA. Scaevola chamissoniana Gaud. This shrub was noted only on the east side of Kaupo Gap. This is a varying species found up to the 6,000-foot elevation. It is not common and blooms in summer. The white flowers with purplish streaks are slit to the base on the upper side. They look like flower-halves rather than complete corollas. There are several legends about the peculiar flower, each dealing with lovers separated from each other. In a song composed about it, the lovers were forceably parted, so the girl divided a perfect corolla, giving one half to her lover while keeping the other half herself. One of the lovers carried the flower to the sea, naupaka kahakai, the other to the mountain, naupaka kuahiwi, where the plants are found today.
MAUI WORMWOOD, Artemisia mauiensis (A. Gray) Skottsb. [Fig. 17.] Typical of Maui and found only on Haleakala, this hoary ornamental shrub, usually 2-3 feet high, perches on cliffs usually above the reach of man. It has a densely-branched crown with silvery leaves that are aromatic and bitter. The leaves are composed of thin segments that are covered with a mat of cottony hair, giving the plant a silvery appearance. The small orange flowers are borne in terminal panicles.
The Hawaiians call the wormwood AHINAHINA, applied also to silversword, geranium, and other gray plants. The basic word refers to the color of silvery-gray hair, the connection being obvious. Hawaiians use the pounded leaves to relieve asthma. The genus is large, having some 250 species that are generally found in arid regions. The sagebrush of the western states, A. tridentata Nutt., is the best known to most park visitors.
KO’OKO’OLAU, Bidens sp. Like Artemisia, the genus is a huge one with over 200 species and belongs to the Composite Family which includes dandelions, daisies, and sunflowers. E. E. Sherff of the Chicago Museum of Natural History, a specialist on the genus, lists sixty species native to Hawaii. Native KO’OKO’OLAU are shrubby and often of great beauty. This is true of B. campylotheca pentamera Sherff which sprawls over the vegetation in Koolau Gap. It has fern-like leaves and large, pretty, yellowish flower-heads. Hawaiians use the tips of young plants for tea, often in preference over imported tea.
Besides the native varieties, three introduced species grow in the islands, including beggar ticks or Spanish needles, B. pilosa L. It is a nuisance, as the three-pronged fruits that give it the common name readily attach themselves to clothing as well as to fur of passing animals.