Hawai'i Gardens
Elusive 'ilima is easy to grow ... if you find it

By Heidi Bornhorst

Did you ever hear old timers speak of a red or pink 'ilima? I had heard about it here and there and it seemed kind of mystical, maybe already extinct, a precious plant to be on the lookout for.

Then I was honored one year to meet the famous plant scientist and visionary Baron Goto when some members of the Japanese royal family toured Foster Botanical Garden, where I work. He mentioned having seen the red 'ilima, and again, I wanted to find and try to grow this plant.

Knowing about my fascination with red 'ilima, my friend and "botanical big sister," botanist Winona Char, first shared the plant with me back in the '70s. Their survey team had found a plant growing in an abandoned 'Ewa canefield.

Ko'oloa'ula, as it is in Hawaiian, is a native Hawaiian dryland shrub. It has silvery, heart-shaped, furry textured leaves. The flowers are about the size of an 'ilima and are pendant and reddish-pink. It is related to hibiscus, ma'o and 'ilima; they are all in the Malvaceae family. This shrub grows from three to six feet tall. It has a somewhat straggly growth habit in the wild but can be pruned into a more attractive shape in your garden.

This plant is on the federal list of endangered species. As with a lot of other Hawaiian native plants, the reason it is so rare in the wild is mainly because its habitat has been destroyed (by development, weeds, fire, introduced animals and diseases.) There are still quite a few plants growing on Lana'i, for example, but there are also lots of hungry and thirsty axis deer (grazing animals alien to Hawai'i, native to the driest parts of India), that love to munch on the vulnerable ko'oloa'ula.

Luckily, ko'oloa'ula, or Abutilon menziesii, is fairly easy to grow. The best way is from seeds. Carefully collecting a few from a healthy plant will not harm the mother plant. Seed-grown plants usually produce the healthiest, most vigorous root systems. Ko'oloa'ula can also be grown from cuttings and air-layering.

This shrub can be trained in a tree-like form or kept as a smaller shrub. It makes an interesting specimen and would also be attractive as a hedge. It will grow and flower in a large pot with regular watering. It likes full sun. Like many native members of the hibiscus family, they should be pruned to keep them from getting too top-heavy. Sometimes fertilizer makes the top growth too heavy and luxuriant for the roots to support, so maintain a light hand with the fertilizer, especially nitrogen. Don't throw that cheap lawn fertilizer on your ko'oloa'ula or other precious native plants. You can trim the plants and make cuttings for your friends.

It makes a gorgeous lei if you can find enough flowers. When my friend Lynne Kaneshiro got her master's degree, she was given an absolutely fantastic lei of ko'oloa'ula blossoms, carefully fashioned to show the full beauty of each flower. This is a fabulous plant to grow for a most awesome lei.

If you do plant the red ilima, you may find that it's attacked by chewing and sucking insects. These are controlled with standard garden insecticides in wettable powder formulations or with regular sprays of insecticidal soap. You can also plant them near a street light or other night lighting to repel night attackers like rose beetles.

Richard Criley of the University of Hawai'io at Manoa horticulture department has one at the St. John Plant Science Building on campus. They grow well at the Halawa Xeriscape garden, and Waimea Botanical Garden also has a nice collection. The National Tropical Botanical Garden on Kaua'i has red 'ilima and its even rarer relative, the hidden-petal abutilon, growing in its Hawaiian section.

You can buy a plant at one of the sales put on by our local botanical gardens. Look for notice of these sales in this column. We also have more and more nurseries growing natives, so let's support them by buying plants from them.

Pat's Island Delights (perfect for those omiyage you had no time to pick up on the Big island), has periodic sales of native plants.

The hidden-petaled 'ilima, Abutilon erimetopetalum, was thought to be extinct. It had not been seen since the 1920s. State forester Bob Hobdy and Bill Garnett of Waimea Arboretum said they "beat the hell out of a rent-a-Jeep" looking for this and other rare plants on Lana'i, where they found a few plants "eaten to the six-foot level by alien axis deer."

Heidi Bornhorst is director of Honolulu's five botanical gardens.