When the salvation of a species depends on a single seed
An epic example of noho i waho, a maliu … be outside, pay attention. In 1992, botanizing botanists, incorrigible plant people, while climbing around, with permits, on ʻAleʻale, a sea stack off Kahoʻolawe, happened upon a sprawling plant they came to realize had never been seen before.
And good thing Ken Wood and Steve Perlman, working for the National Tropical Botanical Garden, did because in 2015 kanaloa (Kanaloa kahoolawensis) became extinct in the wild. But before that fateful day, two seeds were found and collected. One germinated and became the founder of the surviving nursery population.
The late Parley Kanakaʻole bestowed its inoa Hawaiʻi, referring to Kanaloa, a traditional name of Kahoʻolawe, and the gentle flexible nature of the plant. Kanaloa, studied and classified, became the only species in its Genus, and is an endemic member of the pea family, a relative of koa, wiliwili, and māmane, as well as invasive ēkoa.
And now, for our word of the month: tergeminate, or thrice-twinned, a reference to the arrangement of leaves on a stem. Liko, young leaves, are bronze colored, and globular flower clusters bear a resemblance to those of koa. The discovery of kanaloa led to solving the “Riddle of the Mysterious Pollen.”
Archaeologists working on Oʻahu, Maui, and Hawaiʻi found an unidentifiable pollen in cores taken from wetlands. It turned out to be kanaloa and, along with ʻaʻaliʻi and loulu, the trio formed a vegetation zone on leeward lowlands until the late 1500s. By then, people had impacted native ecosystems so much that kanaloa disappeared from the pollen record. But, it lingered on ʻAleʻale. Tenaciously waiting…
