39 



whence about seven of tlie tall species are recorded in Hooker's Flora of British 

 India. C. B. Clarke classes them in the section Nlnjinopctaluin of which the 

 tallest species is about twelve feet in height. Nearly all of these species have 

 brancbius: stems as occur in Lobelia gloria-montis longibrarteata and Lobelia 

 Kaiiaeiisi/^. The Indian species inhabit the Himalayas up to an elevation of 

 from three tliousand to twelve thousand feet. The Hawaiian true Lobelias of 

 the type to which L. Gaiidicliaudii belongs, inhabit the highest available altitudes 

 which harbor extensive bogs. If Mauna Kea and Ilaleakala had boggy sununits 

 we would probably find species of Tjohclia as high up as 1:3,000 feet and 10,000 feet 

 respectively. 



The other group of Lobelia inhabiting Hawaii have blue flowers and are as a 

 whole quite different in character from Lobelia Gaudichaiidii. The most re- 

 markable of the blue flowered type is Lobelia yuccoides (see Plate XX), which 

 renunds one more of the Lobelias of the Abyssinian highland, like Lobelia rkyn- 

 copetalitm. The latter grows in the province of Semien up to an altitude of nearly 

 14,000 feet in boggy meadows. It reaches a height of fourteen feet and has an 

 inflorescence of an additional ten feet in length. This intiorescence bears over a 

 thousand blue flowers of a finger's length. Lobelia yuccoides as the specific 

 name implies has the appearance of a yucca and is peculiar to Kauai and Oahu 

 where it grows at lower elevations from 3,000 feet upward but does not ascend to 

 the high swampy plateau; it loves canyons and flourishes best near waterfalls 

 and on the edge of clift's usually in company with the extraordinary and peculiar 

 composite WiUcesia gynnioripleiioii. The stem of Lobelia yuccoides is often over 

 six feet in length and bears a single flowering spike three feet in length with up 

 to four hundred blue flowers. Its habit is decidedly- dift'erent from that of 

 Tjobelia (huidichaudii and is thus closer related to the African species than to 

 the X'ortli Indian ones. With Lobelia yuccoides we must class Lobelia oahuensis, 

 with a large dense crown of thick woolly leathery leaves. As the name implies it 

 is peculiar to Oahu, to the sunnnit ridge of the Koolau Mountains where it 

 grows on the exposed, wind-swept cliffs with Cladium Meycnii, Dubautia la.ra. 

 Coreopsis, Trematolobeliu nHKrotaehys. and others. Like Lobelia yuccoides it is 

 related to the African forms like Lobelia Volkensii, and Lobelia Deckenii, which 

 have the single flowering spike in common. They differ however from the Ha- 

 waiian species in being larger and more rigid in every way, as well as in the 

 large floral bracts. ]\It. Ilaleakala on Maui possesses also a species of Lobelia 

 of the /, yuccoides type. It ascends however up to seven thousand feet, while 

 Ij. yuccoides goes hardly beyond three thousand five hundred feet. There remain 

 yet Lobelia Injpolcuca. Lobelia lliUebrandii and Lobelia tortuosa. The two first 

 named species are closely related and differ from the other blue flowered ones 

 in having several floral spikes instead of one. (See Plate XIX.) Lobelia hypo- 

 Icvea is exceedingly handsome and reaches a height of four feet, branching at 

 the apex and bearing a number of spikes with bluish grey flowers. In the 

 Kohala mountains the writer met with a sterile specimen measuring about fifteen 

 feet in height, a stem of about three and a half inches in diameter and a huge 

 crown of broad silvery white leaves which agreed with those of />. hypoleuca. 

 As the plant was not in flower it was impossible to identify it. In all probability 

 it represented an undescribed giant species. 



Judging from the relationship of the Hawaiian Lobelias with species occur- 

 ring in such vastly different geographical regions, we must come to the con- 



