Kamalo pritchardia

The Essence

"Pritchardia munroi is Critically Endangered and reduced in the wild to a single population of two trees. They grow on Moloka'i, near the base of a small ravine above Kamalo and Kapuaoko'olau on East Moloka'i. Hodel's 2007 revision of the genus also referred plants on the south side of the Puu Kukui massif in West Maui to this species, and a Maui Now report of 27 February 2026 placed two wild individuals in Ukumehame Valley on West Maui; the Hawai'i DLNR fact sheet gives the endemism as Maui and Moloka'i, while NTBG and the US Fish and Wildlife-derived species account treat the palm as a Moloka'i endemic. Joseph Rock found it on Moloka'i in 1920 and published the name the following year. It is a small solitary fan palm reaching about 5 m, distinguished in Hodel's account by the thick uniform greyish-brown hairs that permanently clothe the flowering branchlets, together with its small fruits. The ex situ collection descends from one seed lot gathered in 1975 from the last wild Moloka'i tree, yielding roughly 22 plants held in botanical gardens around the world; the State of Hawai'i built a fenced exclosure around that tree in 1989. Feral axis deer, goats and pigs, fire, hurricanes and rodents eating the seed are the threats listed by the state, and the coconut rhinoceros beetle, in Hawai'i since 2013, is a newer one: loulu crowns are small and easier for the beetle to penetrate than a coconut's, raising the risk of lethal damage or secondary fungal infection."

Loulu is the Hawaiian name for all Pritchardia, the only palms native to Hawai'i; Maui Nui Botanical Gardens counts 24 species across eight islands, six of them on two islands and the rest single-island endemics. Loulu leaves were used as roofing thatch that lasted longer than grass, as makeshift umbrellas and woven into hats, and the green immature seeds, called hawane or wahane, were considered a delicacy said to taste somewhat like niu haohao, the soft meat of the green coconut. Pritchardia munroi was listed as Endangered under the US Endangered Species Act on 8 October 1992, in a rule covering 16 plants from the island of Moloka'i, and critical habitat was designated. A 2004 review of the genus by Chapin, Wood, Perlman and Maunder found 11 of 23 Hawaiian Pritchardia species Critically Endangered, nine Endangered, two Vulnerable and one Data Deficient, concluding that a large proportion of the genus is on the verge of extinction. The pollination biology and seed dispersal of P. munroi remain unstudied: the Hawai'i DLNR fact sheet lists both among the outstanding research priorities for the species.