Watching a PGA tournament from Oahu this afternoon, I began to wonder how many trees are native to that remote Pacific archipelago. I thus consulted Common Forest Trees of Hawaii by Elbert L. Little and Roger G. Skolmen of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (available online).
Before reading the article, I assumed that few of Hawaii's trees are native to the islands due to their remote location and relatively young age (10 million years or so); I was wrong. In fact, Hawaii leads all U.S. States in its number of native tree species. At least 300 grace the islands, thought to have evolved from 78 unique species that arrived over the years; genetic testing suggests that 45 arrived from the West or Southwest (Indo-Pacific region), 16 from the South Pacific and 7 from North America.
The seeds are thought to have arrived on floating vegetation, via seabird droppings or on the winds of powerful hurricanes. Of course, the lush vegetation of present-day Hawaii also includes a large number of trees introduced by early Polynesian settlers, by European explorers and by modern-day humans. Of note, 18 of the many palm species found today are native to Hawaii.
