16 
PACIFIC SCIENCE, January, 1947 
there are trees 20 feet tall, 6 inches in diam¬ 
eter; at South Opaeula Gulch trees 20 feet 
tall, 1 foot in diameter; at Laie-Malaekahana 
ridge a grove with trees up to 20 feet tall, 1 
foot in diameter; and at Puu Peahinaia a 
tree 30 feet tall, 18 inches in diameter. 
Charles S. Judd (1939: 36) reported and 
printed a photograph of the largest tree he 
found, in Waola Valley, Kawailoa, 30 feet 
Fig. 2. Largest known sandalwood tree ( Santa- 
lum Freycinetianum ) on Oahu, 28 inches in diam¬ 
eter, Kawailoa, September 28, 1943. The epiphytes 
are Nephrolepis exaltata. The figure is Harold St. 
John. 
high, 21.3 inches in diameter. Territorial 
forest ranger Tom McGuire and the writer 
found a still larger one on September 28, 
1943 (Fig. 2). It is near the north crest of 
a northern side ridge descending from the 
Anahulu Trail about one-fourth mile inside 
the Forest Reserve boundary at about 1,300 
feet altitude. The tree had many branches 
and a wide spreading crown. As its trunk 
forked 4 feet from the ground, it was meas¬ 
ured at 3 feet from the ground. It was 25 
feet tall, 78^ inches in circumference, 28 
inches in diameter. 
RATE OF GROWTH 
It is natural to inquire as to the rate of 
growth of S. Freycinetianum. A wood sec¬ 
tion was taken from a branch iy^ inches in 
diameter, collected in 1932 by the writer at 
Paumalu on the Pupukea-Kahuku Trail at 
the north end of the Koolau Range. The 
wood was so hard that it was necessary to 
boil it for 3 days before it could be cut with 
a microtome knife. To the naked eye, faint, 
fairly regular rings were visible in a cut stub 
or in the transverse, stained microscopic sec¬ 
tion. Under the low-power lens of the com¬ 
pound microscope, these rings were also 
faintly visible. The wood was dense, of 
closely massed tracheids, small in diameter, 
thick walled, and uniform in all parts of the 
rings. The vessels were in radial rows, but 
irregularly spaced. The ray cells were uni¬ 
form. The distinct banding which distin¬ 
guished the rings was due to a grouping of 
cells with dark contents, probably tannin. 
The 15 or so rings might be annual rings, 
but this is not certain. Conditions are favor¬ 
able for growth at all times of year on Oahu, 
as there are never freezing temperatures. 
There are, nevertheless, definite seasons to 
which all plants respond, flowering mostly 
in the spring and summer. There is a belief 
that these seasons are determined by a rainy 
and a dry season, but this does not seem to 
be substantiated. Weather records made 
