L earning  O bjective  4

Become familiar with 24 species of cultivated plants, called Polynesian introductions, which most botanists agree were first brought during the prehistoric Polynesian immigration period. (Lab and lecture objective.)

I. Early Polynesians.

A. People first arriving to Hawaii are not called Hawaiians because ______________________________________________________________

B. If native plants were the sole source for food and other critical needs, only a small population could have been supported on the Hawaiian Islands.
 

1. However, like many peoples migrating from their homeland to an unknown place, the Polynesians took the familiar and valuable plants already in their cultivation. (Click here to see what plants Hawaiians brought with them.)

2. Taro, for example, the most important part of the Hawaiian diet, was a crop plant for thousands of years in China and Asia.

3.  As a result of bringing their crop plants with them, a larger population of Polynesians could be supported in the new Homeland.
 

C. All knowledge about plants was preserved by Hawaiians through oral tradition. An example is the "medicine man" or Kahuna La'au Lapa'au. His knowledge about plants and cures were passed on to him orally from his teacher.

A. During Cook's third voyage, scientist David Nelson, collected on Kaua'i, Ni'ihau and Hawai'i. Other expeditions and collections followed.

B. Hillebrand, who arrived in 1851, deserves special notice. He was a physician at Queens hospital and also for Kamehameha V. Hillebrand started a botanical collection at his home now known as Foster Gardens. He lived in Hawai'i for 20 years, and wrote the first flora of the Islands.

Reprinted from Plants and Flowers of Hawaii.    by From S.H.Sohmer & R.Gustafson.

 

III. Recent botanists:  

Reprinted from Naturalist's   South Pacific Expedition: Fiji    by Otto Degener.

A. Otto Degener and his wife together wrote seven books about Hawaiian plants, many illustrated with his line drawings.

 

Photo provided by Martha St. John Martin Reprinted with permission

B. Dr. Harold St. John taught at UH Manoa, from 1929 until 1959. He was a prolific botanical collector and writer.

C. Dr. Fosberg: was a world authority on Pacific flora and author of major theory about origins of the Hawaiian flora which we'll study.

IV. The Present Condition of the Hawaiian Flora

Of the native Hawaiian plants studied and described by the botanists above, 40% to 50% are extinct, vulnerable, rare or endangered.

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