Puu Kukui is a mountain peak in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

. It is the highest peak of Mauna Kahalawai (the

West Maui Mountains The West Maui Mountains, West Maui Volcano, or Mauna Kahālāwai which means "holding house of water," is approximately 1.7 million years old and forms a much eroded shield volcano that constitutes the western quarter of Maui. Since its last erup ...

). The summit rises above the Puu Kukui Watershed Management Area, an private nature preserve maintained by the

Maui Land & Pineapple Company Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Inc. (ML&P, ) is a land holding and operating company founded in 1909 and based in Kapalua, Hawaii, United States. It owns approximately on the island of Maui. It develops, sells, and manages residential, resort, co ...

. The peak was formed by a

volcano A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates are ...

whose

caldera A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcano eruption. When large volumes of magma are erupted over a short time, structural support for the rock above the magma chamber is ...

eroded into what is now the

Iao Valley Iao Valley ( Hawaiian: ''Īao'': "cloud supreme", pronounced similar to "EE-yow") is a lush, stream-cut valley in West Maui, Hawaii, located west of Wailuku. Because of its natural environment and history, it has become a tourist location. It w ...

. Puu Kukui is one of the wettest spots on Earth and the third wettest in the state after

Big Bog, Maui The Big Bog on the island of Maui is the largest high-altitude bog in the Hawaiian Islands. It is located on East Maui Volcano's east rift zone, at the border between Hāna Forest Reserve and Haleakalā National Park. It is alleged to be on ...

and

Mount Waialeale Mount Waialeale is a shield volcano and the second highest point on the island of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands. Its name literally means "rippling water" or "overflowing water" The mountain, at an elevation of , averages more than of rain a ...

, receiving an average of of rain a year. Rainwater unable to drain away flows into a

bog A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and muskeg; a ...

. The

soil Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former te ...

is dense, deep, and acidic. Puu Kukui is home to many

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

s, and

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

s, including the greensword ('' Argyroxiphium grayanum''), a distinctive bog variety of ''ōhia lehua'' ('' Metrosideros polymorpha var. pseudorugosa'') and many '' lobelioid'' species. Due to the mountain peak's extreme climate and

peat Peat (), also known as turf (), is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem covers and is the most efficien ...

soil, many species, such as the ''ōhia'', are represented as dwarfs. Access to the area is restricted to researchers and conservationists.

References

External links

* {{US prominent Volcanoes of Maui Nui Polygenetic shield volcanoes Hotspot volcanoes Wetlands of Hawaii Landforms of Maui Nature reserves in Hawaii Protected areas of Maui

See also

References

External links