KOKIA: A NEW GENUS OF HAWAIIAN TREES 



By FREDERICK L. LEWTON 



(With Five Plates) 



A few beautiful malvaceous trees, known to the natives under the 

 name of " kokio/' ' are at present to be found at North Kona, Island 

 of Hawaii, in the driest part of the island at an elevation of 2,000 feet 

 in the rough lava fields on the slopes of the Volcano of Hualalai. They 

 were discovered, in 1909, by Mr. Joseph F. Rock, of Honolulu, and 

 represent the surviving members of a hitherto unrecognized species 

 of a genus here to be described as new. Within a year two of the 

 six original trees have been destroyed, and unless immediate steps arc 

 taken by the territorial authorities for their protection, the four re- 

 maining trees will be exterminated. Mr. Rock has very kindly 

 furnished the writer with notes on the living trees as well as herbarium 

 material collected by him, which have mainly afforded the data neces- 

 sary for the description of the new genus and species. 



Formerly there were to be found on some of the other Hawaiian 

 islands a number of trees known as Gossypium drynarioides, and a 

 " variety (3," which we must regard as representing two distinct 

 species, in addition to the one already mentioned. These trees were 

 generally found standing singly or in small groups on rough lava- 

 covered ridges. Probably much more abundant in former times, they 

 were exterminated from all but the driest and most inaccessible por- 

 tions of the islands, and so destructive have been men and cattle that 

 within the past few years the few remaining trees have all been 

 destroyed. The natives stripped the trees of their bark, which con- 

 tained a red sap, a preservative of their fish nets, while cattle fed 

 upon the large, succulent leaves. 



The botanical history of Gossypium drynarioides and the " variety 

 (3 " may be briefly stated as follows: In [865 Berthold Seemann * de- 

 scribed as Gossypium drynarioides a specimen in the herbarium of the 



Anderson's Hawaiian Dictionary defines the noun ko-ki as follows : " The 

 extremity; the end of a tree; a very high place." The native name of these 

 trees, kokio, possibly relates to the habitat. 



"Seemann, B. : Flora Vitiensis, 1865, p. 22. 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 60, No. 5 



