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Pūkiawe
Leptecophylla tameiameiae
Leptecophylla tameiameiae, known as pūkiawe or maiele in the Hawaiian language, is a species of flowering plant that is native to the Hawaiian and Marquesas Islands.
The specific epithet honors King Kamehameha I, who formed the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. It grows as a tree up to 4.6 m (15 ft) tall in forests and as a shrub 0.9–3 m (3.0–9.8 ft) in height elsewhere. Its small needle-like leaves are whitish underneath, dark green above. The round berries range in color from white through shades of pink to red. Pūkiawe is found in a variety of habitats in Hawaii at elevations of 15–3,230 m (49–10,597 ft), including mixed mesic forests, wet forests, bogs, and alpine shrublands.
From the article Leptecophylla tameiameiae on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), quoted section by section
What it does
Pūkiawe is a hardy, adaptive, and morphologically variable plant that occupies a variety of ecosystems, from dry forest up to alpine bogs and shrublands. Despite being common, it is difficult to propagate, taking months to years for seeds to germinate and growing very slowly. The nēnē and other birds eat the berries of this shrub and thus distribute it.
Wikipedia: “Ecology”
At the table
Native Hawaiians would inhale ground leaves of the pūkiawe to treat congestion, and used the fruit to make lei. Hawaiian nobility used the smoke of pūkiawe to modify their mana before interacting with people of lower caste. The bodies of executed criminals were cremated on pyres of pūkiawe to drive the mana from their bones and ensure their ghosts were harmless.
Wikipedia: “Human Uses”
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Leptecophylla tameiameiae in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 122662.