''Santalum haleakalae'', known as Haleakala sandalwood or ''Iliahi'' in Hawaiian, is a species of flowering

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

in the sandalwood family, that is

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 else ...

to the islands of

Maui The island of Maui (; Hawaiian: ) is the second-largest of the islands of the state of Hawaii at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2) and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is the largest of Maui County's four islands, whic ...

Lanai Lanai ( haw, Lānai, , , also ,) is the sixth-largest of the Hawaiian Islands and the smallest publicly accessible inhabited island in the chain. It is colloquially known as the Pineapple Island because of its past as an island-wide pineapple pl ...

, and

Molokai Molokai , or Molokai (), is the fifth most populated of the eight major islands that make up the Hawaiian Islands archipelago in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It is 38 by 10 miles (61 by 16 km) at its greatest length and width with a us ...

in the

Hawaiian Islands The Hawaiian Islands ( haw, Nā Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost ...

, part of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. It grows in subalpine shrublands at elevations of , especially on the slopes of Haleakalā.

Description

This is a shrub or small tree with green, ovate leaves that are often glaucous and tinged purple, especially in ''var. halekalae''. The flowers are cream-colored to red in bud and cream to white when open, arranged in tight compound

cymes An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed ...

. The fruit are reddish to black

drupes In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is an indehiscent fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the ''pit'', ''stone'', or '' pyrena'') of hardened endocarp with a seed (''kern ...

Range

''Santalum haleakalae'' var. ''haleakalae'' occurs only on the slopes of Haleakalā on

. ''Santalum haleakalae'' var. ''lanaiense'' occurs on the islands of

, and

Habitat

''Santalum haleakalae'' var. ''haleakalae'' occupies subalpine and montane mesic forests, while ''Santalum haleakalae'' var. ''lanaiense'' occupies wet shrublands.

Ecology

Like most sandalwoods, ''Santalum haleakalae'' is a

hemiparasite A parasitic plant is a plant that derives some or all of its nutritional requirements from another living plant. They make up about 1% of angiosperms and are found in almost every biome. All parasitic plants develop a specialized organ called th ...

, deriving some of its nutrition from the roots of surrounding plants, and ''Santalum haleakalae'' var. ''lanaiense'' is thought to use koa (''Acacia koa'') as a host (among other native trees). Their flowers provide nectar for native

Hawaiian honeycreeper Hawaiian honeycreepers are a group of small, passerine birds endemic to Hawaii. They are closely related to the rosefinches in the genus ''Carpodacus'', but many species have evolved features unlike those present in any other finch. Their great ...

s like the Maui ʻamakihi.

Human Use

Native Hawaiians Native Hawaiians (also known as Indigenous Hawaiians, Kānaka Maoli, Aboriginal Hawaiians, First Hawaiians, or simply Hawaiians) ( haw, kānaka, , , and ), are the indigenous ethnic group of Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands. Hawa ...

used (including other native members of this genus) for a variety of medicinal purposes, perfuming kapa, and making musical instruments. After learning of the lucrative global market in sandalwood in the late 18th century, Hawaiian nobles forced people of lower castes to harvest the wood of this and related trees, many of whom suffered or died in the process, resulting in famine due to abandoning food crops. Hawaii was so well known in China for its sandalwood that people in the

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

area referred to it as "Tan Heung Shan," or "the Sandalwood Mountains." The trade in Hawaiian sandalwood ended around the middle of the 19th century, and while many populations have recovered, large, old trees remain difficult to find.

Etymology

The specific and varietal epithet ''haleakalae'' comes from Haleakalā, the volcano to which that variety is endemic. The varietal epithet ''lanaiense'' comes from the island of Lanai, one of the islands where that variety occurs.

Taxonomy

Research in 2010 determined that the '' Santalum freycinetianum'' was

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage of organisms or other evolving elements that is of mixed evolutionary origin. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as homoplasies, which are explained as a result of conver ...

and the variety ''Santalum freycinetianum'' var. ''lanaiense'' was most closely related to ''S. haleakalae''. The authors combined them as two varieties of the same species, ''Santalum haleakalae'' var. ''haleakalae'' for the plants on Haleakalā and ''Santalum haleakalae'' var. ''lanaiense'' for the plants elsewhere on

as well as on

and

References

External links

* * * * {{Taxonbar, from=Q5464147 haleakalae Endemic flora of Hawaii Biota of Maui Trees of Hawaii Plants described in 1888 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN