Molokai fan palm

The Essence

"Pritchardia hillebrandii survives in the wild largely because a pair of sea stacks kept the browsers out. Its remaining wild stands sit on the flat tops of the rocky islets of Huelo and Mokapu off the windward north coast of Moloka'i. Palmpedia reports about 200 palms on the two to three acres atop the Huelo seastack, which rises roughly 200 feet above the ocean (Native Plants of Hawai'i says 200 to 300), where rats and goats are absent; PACSOA puts the figure at over 300. Roughly ten more trees grow on Mokapu. Rats did reach Mokapu, but they have since been eradicated, and the population there is expected to start increasing. As recently as 1976, fifteen plants were found in the valleys and at the base of the north-coast sea cliffs. They may have been cultivated, since they stood at or near sites of human activity, but either way they are gone from there today, goats and rats the likely cause. The species is variable, ranging from plain green-leaved plants to a much-admired 'blue dwarf' form glaucous on both leaf surfaces. Its diagnostic characters are the conspicuously waxy-glaucous blades, sometimes so heavily coated they appear nearly white, inflorescences shorter than or equaling the petioles, and small, roughly globose fruits. It is also one of the easier Hawaiian Pritchardia to grow. PACSOA calls it widely cultivated and fast growing, and Geoff Stein, writing on Palmpedia, calls it one of the most common species in southern Californian collections, though Palmpedia elsewhere notes it is not often available for landscaping. That is how a palm can be well established in cultivation while the IUCN lists it as Critically Endangered at a single location. Both statements are true; they are simply about different things. In Hawaiian use the fruits, called hawane or wahane, were peeled and the seeds' endosperm eaten, with a texture and flavour similar to coconut. Fronds were used for thatching, and trunks for spears and construction posts; trunks were notched to make climbing easier when harvesting fruit and fronds, and old palms still carry the notches. Seeds were likely strung for lei, and leaves may also have been made into fans, umbrellas, hats and baskets, though those uses were probably uncommon until after Western contact in 1778. Palmpedia relays a striking account from Audrey Sutherland's Paddling My Own Canoe: early Hawaiians are said to have climbed Huelo Islet, cut suitable fronds, attached them like wings, and jumped to glide to the ocean more than a hundred feet below."

Hillebrand planted much of what he collected at Queen's Hospital and on his own Nu'uanu property on O'ahu, which after his return to Germany was sold to his neighbours Thomas and Mary Foster; it is today Foster Botanical Garden, where several Pritchardia hillebrandii still grow. The type provenance is murky: it is unclear whether Hillebrand's type material came from cultivated plants in Honolulu or from wild or cultivated plants on Moloka'i, and Beccari (1890) noted much confusion around the provenance and labels of Hillebrand's specimens at Berlin. Rock (1921) described a 'robust' variety with very large leaves cultivated near Kamalo on Moloka'i, though he suspected the size might be down to soil. Reintroduction is now under way in fenced areas at Kuka'iwa'a Point on Moloka'i by naturalist Bill Garnett.