Pukiawe

Styphelia tameiameiae (Chamisso & Schlechtendal) F. v. Mueller

Styphelia tameiameiae (Chamisso & Schlechtendal) F. v. Mueller, Fragmenta, fi:55, 1867.

Cyathodes tameiameiae Chamisso & Schlechtendal, Linnaea, 1:539, 1826.

Leaves patent, broadly to narrowly elliptic, stiff, up to 1 cm long, dull green above, whitish with darker veins beneath, these forked once or twice and somewhat spreading distally; corolla white, 3 mm long, lobes triangular, pilose within, more or less hooked at apex; fruit subglobose to depressed globose white to purplish on one side or maroon.

A common Hawaiian species with several forms or varieties in southeastern Polynesia. In Hawaii the species occurs over a great altitudinal range and exhibits a perplexing array of variations that have yet to be elucidated. In the Marquesas, one variety very close to, but distinguishable from, the Hawaiian ones, is found at higher elevations on Nukuhiva.

Styphelia tameiameiae (Chamisso & Schlechtendal) F. Mueller

Cyathodes tameiameiae Chamisso & Schlechtendal, Linnaea, 1:539. 1826.—Endlicher, Ann. Wien Mus. 1:170. 1836.—A. P. de Candolle, Prod. 7:741. 1839b.—Nuttall, Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. n.ser. 8:270. 1843.—Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. 5:325. 1862c.—Mann, Proc. Am. Acad. 7:188. 1867.—Wawra, Flora 56:59. 1873.—Hillebrand, Fl. Haw. Is. 272. 1888.—Drake del Castillo, Ill. Fl. Ins. Pac. 7:244. 1892.—Heller, Minn. Bot. Stud. 1:872. 1897.—Rechinger, Denies. Akad. Wien 89: 637. 1913.—F.B.H. Brown, Bish. Mus. Occ. Pap. 8(6):332, f.9. 1922.—Degener, Pl.Haw.Nat.Park 247, t.69. 1930.

Cyathodes banksii Gaudichaud, Voy. Uran. Bot. 98. 1827 [nomen nudum].—Endlicher, Ann. Wien Mus. 1:170. 1836 [nomen nudum]—A. P. de Candolle, Prod. 7:742. 1839b. [cum desc]—Nuttall, Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. n.ser. 8:270. 1843.

Cyathodes macraeana A. P. de Candolle, Prod. 7:742. 1839b.

Cyathodes tameiameiae var. societatis Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. 5:325. 1862c.—Seemann, Fl. Vit. 146. 1866.—Nadeaud, Enum. Pl. Tahiti 62. 1873.—Drake del Castillo, Fl. Polyn. Fr. 116. 1892.

Styphelia tameiameiae (Chamisso & Schlechtendal) F. Mueller, Fragm. 6:55. 1867.—Drude in Engler and Prantl, Nat. Pfl. 4(1):78. 1889 [under C. tameiameiae, sphalm.]—Rock, Indig. Trees Haw. 365. 1913.—Skottsberg, Medd. Goteb. Bot. Trädj. 2:254. 1926.

Styphelia tameiameiae f. marquesensis F.B.H. Brown, Bish. Mus. Bull. 130:218. 1935.

DESCRIPTION.—Shrub, 2 m high, with spreading or erect branches. Young twigs pubescent, old ones glabrate. Leaves erect on young shoots, soon spreading, and becoming reflexed before they drop off. Petiole 1 mm or less long. Leaves very variable in shape, often of 3 distinct types: linear, elliptical, and obovate, rarely all 3 occurring on the same twig; 5–17 (–30 on young sprouts) mm long by 1–3.2 mm wide; tip acute when the leaf is linear and obtuse when the leaf is obovate, but rather regularly mucronulate; usually ciliolate along the distal third (or more) of the margin; grayish or bluish-green above, usually paler or glaucous below; with about 7 primary veins which branch dichotomously from base to margins of leaf, giving a striolate appearance. Flowers axillary or pseudoterminal, solitary, 3–4 mm long. Pedicels 1–2 mm long, bearing 5–9 imbricated sepal-like bractlets, which are obtuse, scarious-margined, and ciliolate. Sepals 1.5 mm long, obtuse, ciliolate. Corolla 3 mm long, pinkish white, cut half-way to the base, the tube usually very slightly exceeding the calyx, although this character is very variable; lobes spreading at maturity, each with 4 or 5 conspicuous hairs on the inner surface. Stamens slightly exserted from the tube. Scales 0.3–0.4 mm long. Pistil 1.7 mm long, the ovary subglobose, somewhat 5-angled, puberulent, 0.7 mm long, the style 1 mm long, the stigma praemorse. Drupe 4–6 mm in diameter, oblate-spherical, 5–8 celled, light to dark rose.

The above description is based on Hawaiian specimens (Grant 7004 and 7388, Waianae Range, Oahu), and includes all the variations seen in herbaria and mentioned in the original description and the subsequent accounts of Gray, Nadeaud, Hillebrand, Drake del Castillo and Rock, with the following exceptions. At higher elevations the plant becomes a small tree, to 3.5 m high; the corolla may be wholly glabrous (var. brownii Gray, var. macraeana (de Candolle) Hillebrand); and the drupe may be white. Hillebrand says that the leaves are aciliolate, but I assume that is merely a matter of relative magnification; leaves several years old may be essentially smooth-margined. Rock has copied Hillebrand's description. Degener's plate shows the leaves as clearly ciliolate.

Gray described his var. societatis as “corollae lobis intus parcissime barbatus; foliis plerisque linearibus,” but doubted its validity, due to the variability of each of these characters in this species.

F. B. H. Brown (1935) based his f. marquesensis on a single character: “… the leaves are on the average longer than those of the Hawaiian forms. The Marquesan form differs little from that of the Society Islands.” He gives the leaf length as 10–15 mm. Grant examined the type (Brown 533, sheet A), and found the leaves average 11 × 2.5 mm. Hillebrand gives the length of the leaves as 4 to 6 lines (8–12 mm), and as stated above, the variation is even wider in the Hawaiian plant. In Brown's plant the leaves may be aciliolate, the corolla tube is 1.7 mm long, slightly exceeding the calyx, the corolla lobes 1.2–1.5 mm, the ovary 0.7 mm, and the style 1–1.2 mm long. The other Marquesan specimens cited below agree in all important particulars. Grant postulates a segregateable form in the Marquesas, as there are very few truly indigenous species which have just this distribution (Hawaii, Marquesas, Society Is.), but he could find no characters on which to separate it.

TYPE.—Collected by Chamisso in Oahu in 1816.

RANGE.—Society Islands, Marquesas, Hawaii.

Society Islands: Tahiti: Nadeaud 404, alt. 900 m, in 1856–1859 (P, fide Drake del Castillo, 1892b). Moorea (Eimeo): Pickering in 1839 (fide Gray).

Marquesas: Nukuhiva: Brown 533, alt. 900 m, 15 July 1921, flower and fruit (BISH, 3 sheets); Quayle 1237, alt. 900 m, 30 December 1922, flower and fruit (BISH); Mumford and Adamson 560, alt. 915 m, 22 October 1929 (BISH, sterile; NY, fruit).

Hawaiian Islands: Numerous records.

According to Nadeaud the plant is common in Tahiti, but no other collector has secured it since, and he may not have distinguished it in the field from S. pomarae. I have not seen the typical plant from the Society Islands.

R. Brown (1810:539) referred to a Tahitian species of Cyathodes, which would be either this or S. pomarae, and presumably had seen a specimen collected by Banks and Solander in 1769, nothing further is known of this record. Seemann and others apparently have not found the specimen in the British Museum.

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.