My Hawaiian Palms as of December 2001
Last update - 01/30/02
All native palms in Hawai`i are members of the Genus
Pritchardia know locally as Lo`ulu. There are 37 species of
Pritchardias and all but 4 are native to the Hawaiian Islands. The
others occur in Fiji, Tonga, the Cook Islands, Solomon Islands and
the Danger Islands.
All of the Hawaiian Pritchardias are on the Endangered
Species list and two or three are extinct in the wild. In most
cases the Hawaiian Pritchardias are found naturally in the wet rain
forests, often on steep slopes. Pritchardia remota from Nihoa Island
to the far Northwest and P. affinis from the west coast of the
southern most island of Hawai`i are low land palm and in nature
survive with out much rain.
I have found that although most of the Pritchardias are rain
forest palms they do quite well here on the west side of O`ahu where
I live. I started all of them under the shade of Leucaena glauca
trees. Here in Hawai`i the Leucaena glauca is a "scrub" tree and a
weed. Seeds were once scattered over the islands dry areas to provide
feed for cattle which love the leaves and seeds which are high in
protein. Unfortunately now the most of the cattle are gone, left
behind are millions of "haole koa" trees which survive with little
water and produce hundreds and hundreds of seeds a year. They are
called haole koa because their leaves look much like the young leaves
of the native Acacia koa tree.
Most of my 2 acre lot was covered with hundreds of these scrub
trees which each year produce thousands and thousands of seeds which
sprout at the first sign of rain. As my Pritchardias and other palm
mature I am cutting and killing the haole koa. Unlike many trees on
the mainland of the USA, if you cut these scrubs down to ground
level they just sprout again with the first rain. The only way to
kill them is to paint the cut stumps with "garlon" sp? a rather
strong herbicide.
Enough talk. Click on the word NEXT below and move on to the
pictures.
