Hibiscadelphus crucibracteatus
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| Hibiscadelphus crucibracteatus | ||||||||||||
| Hobdy |
Hibiscadelphus crucibracteatus (Hawaiian name: "Lava Hau kuahiwi") is an extinct species of the genus Hibiscadelphus within the family of mallow (Malvaceae). It was endemic to the Hawaiian island of Lana'i .
description
Hibiscadelphus crucibracteatus was a deciduous tree that reached a height of six meters. The trunk had a diameter of 16 centimeters. The leaves were five to four inches long and unlobed. The leaf blade was ovate to broadly ovate. The top was essentially smooth. On the underside, the leaves had star-shaped tufts of hair in the nerve axils. The entire leaf margin was seven to eleven teeth and the leaf base was open heart-shaped. The leaf stalks were 1.5 to 5 inches long.
The flowers were solitary. The flower stalks were 2 to 3.5 inches long. The four to five green, smooth, spatulate-shaped sepals that were slightly fused at the base were 20 to 30 millimeters long, 3 to 7 millimeters wide and had a protruding central rib. The petals were dark purple, inconspicuously veined and between 5 and 6.5 cm long. The columna was 4.2 to 4.9 inches long.
The capsule fruits were woody, almost spherical, pentagonal, protruding and about 2.3 to 2.7 cm long. The mesocarp was well developed and reticulate. There were ten endocarp layers. The seeds were five to seven millimeters long and hairy grayish white.
status
In 1981 a single tree was discovered on a dry, windward slope of the Puhiʻelelū Ridge on Lānaʻi at an altitude of 750 m asl, which died in 1985. Efforts by the botanist Robert W. Hobdy to save this tree by seedlings were unsuccessful. The exact reason for the extinction of the species is not known, but the destruction of the wet forests on Lānaʻi by axis deer and the displacement of endemic vegetation by invasive plants may have played a major role.
literature
- Warren L. Wagner, Derral R. Herbst, SH Sohmer: Manual of the Flowering Plants of Hawai'i . University of Hawai'i Press, 1999. ISBN 0824821661
- Hobdy, RW 1984. A Re-Evaluation of the Genus Hibiscadelphus (Malvaceae) and the Description of a New Species . Occas. Pap. Bernice P. Bishop Mus. 25 (11): 1-7.
Web links
- Entry at Natureserve
- Manual of the Flowering Plants of Hawai'i Vol. 1 Section 64 - Malvaceae: Mallow Family - Part 2 - 5. Hibiscadelphus
- Hibiscadelphus crucibracteatus in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2006. Posted by: World Conservation Monitoring Center, 1998. Retrieved on June 26 of 2007.