Hope grows for endangered native plant
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer
LIHU'E, Kaua'i — Conservationist Keith Robinson said he has been able to produce seeds and seedlings from what has been perhaps the rarest plant in the world: the stunning hau hele 'ula, Kokia cookei.
Gerald D. Carr
But he won't be sharing them with anyone. Robinson said he fears that environmental groups and government agencies would try to steal the results of his work or condemn the land where he has been working if they knew where the plants were.
Kaua'i conservationist Keith Robinson says he has used horticultural techniques to get the endangered Moloka'i kokia to produce viable seed, and has gotten the seedlings to grow. The kokia flower is one of the showiest of all Hawaiian native blossoms.
Environmental lawyer David Henkin, of the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, lauded Robinson's breakthrough and urged him to share the discovery.
"Endangered plants are part of all of our natural heritage," Henkin said.
Sam Gon III, director of science for The Nature Conservancy of Hawai'i, said that if Robinson has accomplished what he says, "It's a breakthrough. It is very important."
The Moloka'i kokia species is critically endangered. It does not grow in the wild and all but a handful grow only if grafted onto another plant.
By the 1970s, the species had declined to a single plant that did not produce viable seed. That last plant was killed in a 1978 fire, but a branch had been grafted onto the rootstock of a related plant. Botanists have been unable to get the plant to grow on its own roots and have been able to keep it alive only when grafted onto the rootstocks of Big Island and Kaua'i relatives. The plant flowers, but even if seeds begin growing, they normally die before they mature.
Until Robinson's success, the only self-rooted members of the species were grown in a laboratory from immature seeds. Lyon Arboretum tissue culture expert Nellie Sugii has grown just half a dozen using tissue culture techniques. She said two or three are very small and still in the lab, while three are growing in a nursery on the Big Island.
"They're so slow-growing ... They're really hard to keep alive," she said.
One of the hopes for the plant is to develop a range of individual plants from seed, identify those with the most genetic differences, and try to cross them to produce a variety of plants, some of which may be stronger, Sugii said.
Robinson has operated a private native plant refuge for more than two decades, producing seeds and growing plants that few others were able to. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wildlife biologist Beth Flint said she is not surprised that Robinson made the breakthrough.
"He's had successes with endangered plants before," Flint said.
Robinson has long said that good horticultural techniques should enable seed production in the Moloka'i kokia. He obtained grafted samples, got them to flower and collected seeds. He said he now has about 30 seedlings growing, although they look weak and he fears many may not survive.
"It's encouraging (that Robinson has had this success)," Sugii said. "If he can get seeds through conventional methods, it may be a combination of environment and genetics that is preventing the plant from thriving."
Robinson believes the plant will probably never survive on its own in the wild because of introduced competing plants, introduced insects, pests and diseases. He calls it and many other of the rarest Hawaiian plants "biologically incompetent" in present-day Hawai'i.
State botanist Vickie Caraway said the Moloka'i kokia has long been rare, and with all the genetic material coming from a single plant, it may be suffering from what scientists call a "genetic bottleneck." She said Robinson may be right about its inability to survive without help in modern Hawai'i.
"For this one, I agree with him," she said.
Robinson said he ran into a lot of difficulties in trying to get the plant to set viable seed and to get the seed to grow.
"There were a number of unconventional methods used," he said. "There were many problems encountered that had to be independently solved." Getting the flowers pollinated was not an issue, though: "There are plenty of pollinators around," he said.
But that doesn't mean the species is saved. Robinson said he is so angry with environmental groups and federal agencies that he is keeping his plants hidden and will not release seeds or seedlings.
"I may not plant them out. There's such a high risk for anybody who has these things growing on his property," he said. He cites the example of the Big Island's McCandless Ranch, where an Audubon Society lawsuit forced the landowners to allow federal wildlife officials onto the habitat of the native Hawaiian crow, the 'alala, and the federal government later acquired a large portion of the ranch.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Barbara Maxfield said that acquisition was based on an agreement, not a traditional condemnation.
"We do not condemn property from private landowners. We encourage private landowners to grow and care for endangered plants on their property," Maxfield said.
Robinson said he has proved that the plants will produce viable seed if properly managed, and invited others to reproduce his work on their own.
Robinson said he decided not to distribute the results of his work when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated tens of thousands of acres of Kaua'i land as critical habitat. Some Robinson family land on Ni'ihau is included in the critical habitat designation. The service was ordered to develop critical habitat designations by a federal judge, in a lawsuit brought by the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund on behalf of the Conservation Council for Hawai'i.
"I think it's time for the environmental groups to pick up some shovels and go out there and do the work themselves. Now they know this can be done, maybe they should go out and do it," he said.
Henkin stood up for the environmental community.
"Many of us have chosen to devote our professional lives to try to protect the environment, and many of us spend spare time and weekends on it, too. The suggestion by this scion of a wealthy family that others should be doing more is offensive," Henkin said.
"Why doesn't he share the wonderful thing he's achieved?" Henkin said. "Is he concerned about the well-being of the plants or one-upmanship over environmentalists? If the latter, then he's made his point."
Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 245-3074.
