HS Flora
| 'A'ali'i |
| Written by Paul Wood |
| October 03, 2007 |
|
Dodonaea viscosa  The Hawaiian name for this plant is easy to pronounce. Each vowel is stated separately: "ah-ah-lee-ee." At first glance, it may not seem like much: a sturdy green shrub with simple, willow-like leaves. And yet this indigenous Hawaiian plant cuts a heroic figure among the flora of the Islands. For one thing, since olden days the ‘a’ali’i has been one of Hawai‘i’s leading lei plants. Although its flowers are insignificant, its papery seed capsules and leafy tips provide sturdy elements in personal adornment. (These days we tend to think of a lei as a string of pretty blossoms; however, the traditional lei is much more about foliage than flowers.) Sacred to Laka and Kapo, goddesses of hula, this plant plays an important role in Hawai‘i's preeminent art form. More important, this plant possesses an amazing resilience. It grows on every Hawaiian Island except Kahoolawe in almost every habitat from sea level to 8,000 feet. It's one of the first plants to pop up in lava flows and disturbed soils. It responds to drought, bad soil, and gale winds with a green, leafy cheerfulness. Harmless and almost indestructible, the ‘a’ali’i seems to symbolize the endurance of all things Hawaiian. In fact, there's a moolelo (an old saying) from the district of Kau on the Big Island: He ‘a‘ali‘i au, ‘a‘ohe makani e hina ai. In other words, "I am an ‘a’ali’i shrub; no wind can push me over." Anyone who has traveled to Kau, especially to Ka Lae, the southernmost point in the U.S., will understand the drama of this boast. Out there the winds slam and howl so hard that you feel as though you're standing in the middle of the Hollywood Freeway. But ‘a’ali’i thrives on this aerial whipping, and it keeps toughening up, so that by the time it grows to full height—which can be 25 feet or more—its yellow-brown wood and its dark heartwood are iron-hard. In the old days, Hawaiians used this wood for spears and for house timber.  Although indigenous to Hawai‘i, this plant also thrives throughout the Pacific and in Mainland gardens, too. Dodonaea (pronounced "dodo-NAY-ah") is common nursery stock in temperate regions, is sold in one-gallon pots as a tough but attractive landscape feature. Left alone, it forms a multi-stemmed, high-overhead, casual screen that's content with the worst garden conditions. And yet it loves to be watered, and is happy to hang out in the pampered flowerbed. You can prune it into any shape you wish, including a single-trunked tree. The personal motto of this plant would have to be: "Give me whatever you got."‘a’ali’i is polymorphic—in other words, it takes on so many shapes that it defies simple description. The leaves can be elliptic, spoon-shaped, lance-shaped or reverse lance-shaped, and pointed or blunt at the tip, sticky or furry. Flowers are either male or female, sometimes together on the same bush, other times on separate plants altogether. Seed capsules can be pink, red, red-purple, yellowish-green or straw-colored with two, three, or four wings, sometimes puffed-out and bladder-like, other times tight and compressed. This spirit of adaptability has bedeviled the botanists. Being scientists, botanists like to hang their observations on certain fixed points—a pine cone is not an apple; a species is a species. But this plant changes its personality depending on the place. In former days, botanists made valiant attempts to organize ‘a’ali’i into rational groups. (In Hawai‘i during the late 1940s, for example, E. E. Sherff described four species and some 35 varieties.) But now they have basically given up. Everything now goes into Dodonaea viscosa, a species of almost infinite shiftiness. One botanist wrote that it would be better not to think of ‘a’ali’i as a species, but rather as a "series"—a series of "independently derived ecotypes from a single Australian ancestor." In that regard, the plant has something in common with our own species, Homo sapiens. For are we not, also, a series of independently derived ecotypes—in our case from a single African ancestor? Perhaps we've hit on the same secret of success. The secret is to be just as happy lying in the hands of a hula dancer as growing on the perimeter of a wind-beaten back yard in New Mexico. |
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