Biologist Account: Heather:
“The final 2 islets for the project were off Kahoolawe and they were a bit of a departure from any we visited so far. KIRC (the Kahoolawe Island Reserve Commission) was gracious enough to fly us over to Kahoolawe, let us stay in their facility, and fly us out to the islets early the next morning. Although we had been dropped off atop narrow ridges before for this project, we always had solid footing before jumping into or out of the helicopter – not so this time. Our landing site on Aleale was nothing more than a large bolder on the side of the steeply sloped islet. The helicopter would rest one skid on the boulder while we quickly jumped out of the helicopter onto the narrow space. Making the situation more precarious were the strong winds that continuously buffeted this part of the Kahoolawe coastline. A sudden wind gust can wreak havoc on a hovering helicopter. Fortunately I was being guided by Ken Wood, a botanist with the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG) on Kauai. He has spent more time on these dangerous islets than anyone, and for good reason. His first visit to the islet was in 1992 and during that trip he made an incredible discovery- an undescribed plant in the Fabaceae (or legume) family. There were only 2 individuals of this plant on Aleale, which turned out not to be just a new Hawaiian plant species, but a new genus. A new plant genus had not been discovered in Hawaii for almost 100 years. He named this new plant Kanaloa kahoolawensis. But the story goes on…paleoecologists had been taking sediment cores along Hawaii’s coastline looking at fossil pollen in an attempt to reconstruct the vegetation communities in Hawaii prior to human contact. The most abundant pollen they found quickly disappeared from sediments after human contact and did not match any known plant species. Well, as you can probably guess by now the pollen from Kanaloa was an exact match to this mystery pollen. So a plant that was formerly widespread along Hawaii’s coast was now reduced to 2 individuals on an isolated sea stack off the coast of Kahoolawe, the most devastated of Hawaii’s islands. Over the years every attempt has been made to recover this special plant species from the brink of extinction, but conditions have not been favorable. The only success propagating the plant has been with seed, which the plants rarely produce. Today, there is only 1 wild Kanaloa that remains on Aleale and another that was grown from seed at NTBG. The plant on Aleale is the only one that produces seed, but it had not done so since 1997. This brings us back to the current trip. We are dropped off on the islet without mishap and scramble up the steep, crumbly slope towards the Kanaloa. Before we even get there, Ken spots the minute seed pods that he has been searching for over the past 11 years and is overcome with excitement. I was afraid he would fall off the islet during his victory dance. The plant is not exactly prolific and he was able to collect 2 mature seeds – 1 was sent to Lyon arboretum and he took the other back to NTBG. The good news was that there were 5 more seed pods that had yet to mature and he planned another visit in a few weeks to collect those as well. Hopefully, the tide is turning for Kanaloa. Aleale is important for more reasons than the Kanaloa though. It’s home to many other rare and endangered plant species, my favorite being the beautiful Portulaca molokiniensis. My mission, of course, was to conduct the arthropod survey and I carefully maneuvered among the loose boulders to catch and document resident species. Working in such vertical terrain is a bit frustrating. A bee or butterfly just 2 meters away is out of reach – you can’t exactly run after it. Our trip was only 4 hours and time quickly flew by. We packed our gear and headed back to perch on our boulder and wait for pick up.”