About Endangered Flowers of Hawaii

Although Hawaii is home to an amazing assortment of exotic plant life, a large proportion of the islands' native plants and flowers are endangered. Approximately half of all the world's endangered plants are in Hawaii, and thousands of native species have already become extinct.
Currently, a number of Hawaii's most beautiful and well-known native flowers are endangered, including Hawaii's state flower, the hibiscus.

Why Are So Many Endangered?

Native Hawaiian flowers were greatly impacted by the plants and trees brought to the islands by settlers in the late 1700s and early 1800s. The mild climate and ash-rich soil on the islands made the foreign plants, flowers and trees flourish and spread rapidly; however, this growth came at the expense of the native plants that were not able to survive the dramatic changes the imported vegetation brought to their surroundings. Many of these native plants simply became extinct.
While the rules governing the importation of plants and flowers into Hawaii now prevent the entry of foreign vegetation, in many cases, the native species have been slow to recover, and many Hawaiian flowers remain endangered.

Biggest Threats

Invasive and wide-spreading plant species such as the strawberry guava, the christmasberry (a shrub native to South America), the miconia plant and the Himalayan raspberry grow so successfully in Hawaii that their rapid spread threatens to destroy whole ecosystems.

Endangered Hawaiian Flowers

Thirty percent of the remaining native Hawaiian plants, trees and flowers today are endangered, and many are feared to be extinct in the wild. Some of these flowers are the hibiscus, red ilima, Bidens micrantha, maia pilo, ohia and ulei.

History of the Hibiscus

The Hibiscus brackenridgei, or ma'o hau hele in Hawaiian, is a tall shrub with distinctive yellow blooms that are the official state flower of Hawaii. This species of hibiscus is native to the dryland forests of Hawaii, one of the rarest ecosystems on the islands. While the hibiscus is rarely seen in the wild, it is still grown successfully by licensed nurseries in Hawaii.

Protecting the Flowers

For many years, private citizens of Hawaii were prohibited by law from gathering or cultivating endangered plants, such as the hibiscus. Unfortunately, this greatly exacerbated the problem of native plant species endangerment, and the law has since been altered to allow licensed nurseries to grow and sell the seeds and seedlings of the hibiscus and other plants, as long as they obtain a Department of Forestry and Wildlife tag that confirms the plant was grown and obtained legally.
In addition, there is a widespread effort in Hawaii to control and destroy as many invasive non-native plant species, such as the miconia, as possible.

Resources

• The TREE Center of Hawaii site provides a list of endangered Hawaiian flowers