18 
PACIFIC SCIENCE, January, 1947 
750 feet altitude. This record was an ob¬ 
servation made by E. Y. Hosaka while study¬ 
ing the flora and vegetation of Kipapa 
Gulch. 
A third low station is in the Waianae 
Mountains, where a single 20-foot tree oc¬ 
curs in a dry lowland gulch below Puu Kuua 
at 500 feet elevation (specimens collected 
November 22, 1931, St. John no. 11,166). 
This is 2,000 feet below, and 3 miles dis¬ 
tant from, the lower forest line near Palehua 
and Puu Manawahua, where the tree is 
again found. From the persistence of these 
isolated trees in the lowlands, even good- 
sized trees, there are indications that the 
sandalwood was originally much more com¬ 
mon in the lowlands. There are also his¬ 
toric and other records which indicate the 
same early distribution. 
Commander Charles Wilkes (1845, vol. 
4: 78-79), reporting on a trip of the nat¬ 
uralists W. P. Rich and W. D. Brackenridge 
in 1840 from Waialua southward, says: 
The next day they proceeded on their way to Ho¬ 
nolulu, across the plain between the two ranges 
of mountains. This plain, in the rainy season, 
affords abundance of food for cattle in three or 
four kinds of grasses, and is, as I have before 
remarked, susceptible of extensive cultivation by 
irrigation from the several streams that traverse it. 
The largest of the streams is the Ewa [Waikele]. 
Scraggy bushes of sandalwood and other shrubs 
are now scattered over a soil fit for the cultivation 
of sugar-cane and indigo. 
Even in the time of Kamehameha I the 
sandalwood had been much depleted, so 
that this monarch put a kapu (ban) on the 
cutting of young trees. A contrary action, 
but arising from the same scarcity, was the 
burning of grassland or forest areas by the 
natives. This was done on the central plain 
of Oahu in order to detect standing or fallen 
logs of sandalwood by the sweet odor of 
their smoke. The flames, of course, killed 
many young sprouts and seedlings and pre¬ 
vented the recovery of the depleted stands of 
sandalwood or other trees. 
B. Seemann (1853, vol. 2: 83), who vis¬ 
ited Oahu in May, 1849, wrote: 
The Oahu Sandal-wood (Santalum paniculatum, 
Hook, et Arn.) [this Oahu species is now known 
to be S. Freycinetianum Gaud.], the Iliahi, or 
Laau ala (fragrant wood) of the Hawaiians, is 
now to be found in only one place, called Kuaohe, 
where it grows on the slopes of hills, close to the 
sea. Of the splendid groves, with the produce of 
which formerly so many ships were laden, but a 
few isolated bushes, which do not exceed three feet 
in height and an inch in diameter, remain, and 
these would probably disappear had they not been 
protected by the law, and thus escaped being con¬ 
verted into fuel. 
There is also an exact German translation 
of this passage (Seemann, "Die Flora von 
Oahu," 1853: 31). The geographic name 
"Kuaohe" is unidentified, though Thomas 
G. Thrum (1904: 72) suggested doubtfully 
that it might be Kaneohe. This is very un¬ 
likely because the two names are dissimilar 
and the tree does not occur in that humid, 
wet region. As no recorded geographic name 
for any land division of whatever size is 
known that coincides with "Kuaohe," it re¬ 
mains unidentified. The name means "bam¬ 
boo ridge." 
The father of Edward Y. Hosaka is 
Yahei Hosaka, a farmer who settled in 1908 
in Kipapa Gulch, Waipio, on the valley 
floor 31/2 mdes upstream from the bridge on 
the old paved territorial highway. On both 
sides of the gulch above his home the steep 
slopes had a forest cover with many sandal¬ 
wood trees. The settlers cut the trees, 
destroying the forest to clear the land for 
the cultivation of pineapples. The koa 
{Acacia Koa) and ohia lehua {Metrosideros 
collina ssp. polymorpha ) were used for fire¬ 
wood. As the sandalwood did not make 
good charcoal, they cut and burned it for 
mosquito punk. 
According to a statement of Dr. H. L. 
Lyon in 1942, cord wood was formerly cut 
and hauled to Honolulu, where it was used 
for cooking and heating. In 1910-11 he 
examined piles of this cord wood in Wa- 
