Endangered plants get help
By James Gonser
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer
A prestigious grant may give new life to five endangered plants here and provide the research needed to save many more, according to Alan Teramura, director of Lyon Arboretum and a professor of botany at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa.
A $50,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services in Washington, D.C., will be used in the arboretum's micropropagation laboratory to try to create new plants from tissue and seeds of five Hawaiian woody plant species: Melicope knudsenii (Alani), Flueggea neowawraea (Mehamehame), Hibiscadelphus woodii (Hau kuahiwi), Kokia cookei (Koki'o), and Kanaloa kahoolawensis (Kanaloa).
These five species are considered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to be some of the most threatened and endangered in the country and in imminent danger of becoming extinct if no immediate action is taken.
Nellie Sugii, curator of the micropropagation lab and writer of the grant, said these plants need special attention. Sugii called the lab a "genetic safety net" and said samples of more than 120 endangered plant species are preserved there.
"I'm a repository for all the plants across the state," Sugii said. "I have a feeling of what is really urgent by seeing what comes in and talking to collaborators. These five stand out as severely affected and critical."
The grant will allow Sugii to hire an assistant to do some of the more routine work in the lab while she concentrates on research.
According to Sugii, only four wild Alani plants remain, three on Kaua'i, and one on East Maui. There are fewer than 50 Mehamehame plants on Kaua'i, O'ahu, Maui and the Big Island.
Only two Hau kuahiwi remain, with one in decline, and all propagation attempts have failed so far.
Kanaloa exists within a single plant on a sea stack off the island of Kaho'olawe. This species was once thought to be prevalent on all islands, according to pollen sampling in archeological digs. All propagation attempts on this species have failed.
Koki'o is extinct in the wild.
Sugii said normal greenhouse attempts to propagate these plants have failed.
"With some, we only have bits of the plants," Teramura said. "We are trying to figure out how to preserve them. A big storm coming through could potentially wipe out an entire population."
In 1991, Lyon Arboretum initiated the Rare Hawaiian Plant Project utilizing micropropagation as a tool for plant genetic conservation.
The mission is to prevent further extinction of Hawaiian plant species, propagate plants for use in approved restoration and reintroduction projects, and initiate and maintain an in vitro germ plasm collection of the critically endangered plants.
The Lyon Arboretum micropropagation laboratory is the sole recipient of all Hawaiian endemic plant propagules, or portions of a plant, and receives approximately 560 plant submissions composed of about 136 species annually.
Teramura said the native flora of Hawai'i represent some of the most unique, diverse and rarest plants in the world. With approximately 1,000 native Hawaiian species of flowering plants, 90 percent are known to be endemic and found nowhere else.
Unfortunately, he said, Hawai'i is also known as the endangered species capital of the world, with approximately one-third of all the nation's federally listed endangered and threatened plants (289 endangered, 11 threatened).
"This is a very prestigious award," Teramura said. "The institute would like to see if we can actually propagate these plants. It really tells the whole country that we are one of the leaders in this area."
Reach James Gonser at jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2431.
