Nihoa fan palm

The Essence

"Pritchardia remota is a small Hawaiian fan palm confined to Nihoa and Niʻihau, described by Odoardo Beccari in 1890. On Nihoa — a small island roughly 240 km northwest of Kauaʻi — it grows in two valleys, West Palm Valley and East Palm Valley, where colonies cluster at the foot of basalt cliffs on ground fed by freshwater seeps; much of the surviving stand sits on the remains of agricultural terraces built by the island's earlier Polynesian residents. It is one of only four Pritchardia species of low-elevation dryland vegetation, all the rest growing in mesic or wet habitats. The palms serve seabirds, providing nesting sites for red-footed boobies and perches for brown noddies. Its history is entangled with people: soil cores from lowland sites in the main islands show that up to half the pollen came from Pritchardia palms, which were abundant there until around AD 1000 when the human population grew sharply, and in 1885 a fire accidentally set by someone in the party accompanying Princess Liliʻuokalani's visit to Nihoa destroyed most of the island's loulu. The population has recovered slowly since, to about 1,100. The plants on Niʻihau were treated as a separate species, Pritchardia aylmer-robinsonii, until Hodel's 2007 review of the genus sank it into P. remota; only two wild plants are known to remain there. Hawaiians fashioned spears from the trunks, notched trunks to climb for fruits and fronds (old notches remain visible on surviving trees), and used the fronds for thatching and for hats and fans; seeds were made into lei."

Dr. Rooke brought seed from Nihoa and planted it on the palace grounds in Honolulu in 1858. A specimen collected by Hillebrand, probably from that cultivated tree, was the basis for Beccari's 1890 description of P. remota. Beccari later expanded the description (Beccari & Rock, 1921) using material Brown collected on Nihoa in 1911 and forwarded by Rock. When Polynesians settled Nīhoa (c. AD 1000–1700) the palm was probably far more widespread, and many were likely cut down to clear space for agriculture.