12 
PACIFIC SCIENCE, January, 1947 
(Pittosporum ), which native shrub or tree 
does not fill the bill. It seems fairly certain 
that instead, his tree is the introduced shrub 
kealia or alaea laau (Blxa Orellana). This 
is an American tropical shrub, of early intro¬ 
duction into the Hawaiian Islands, but just 
how early cannot now be definitely stated. 
Dr. W. T. Brigham (1911: 158), in his ac¬ 
count of the dye plants used for coloring 
kapa (bark cloth), wrote: 
This shrub was formerly cultivated here for the 
red dye obtained by macerating the seed pulp, and 
has become naturalized in places. ... I found it 
growing apparently wild in 1864 in Nuuanu and 
on the barren plains east of Kawaiahao church. 
... I believe that the old Hawaiians used the plant 
as a useful dye at least a century ago. 
It is still commonly cultivated and occa¬ 
sionally naturalized in the islands. Brigham’s 
estimate of its introduction would put the 
date at 1811. If this is correct, by 1831 there 
would have been plenty of time for it to have 
become dispersed among the Hawaiian vil¬ 
lages. The Hawaiians have always been great 
plant lovers and skillful gardeners. Each 
attractive or useful plant has been spread 
among them with great rapidity. 
The kealia is not a native plant, but 
neither is the uala ( Ipomoea Batatas) nor the 
olena ( Curcuma longa ), which latter Ben¬ 
nett thought was growing wild. As Bennett 
was more zoologist than botanist, perhaps 
he should be excused for thinking the olena 
a wild plant. Many other explorers and 
botanists have been fooled by the gardens 
of the Polynesian peoples. Some of their 
crops, which need such culture, are planted 
and tended in well-cultivated fields. Others 
which grow well without care are planted at 
the base of the trees in a forest or on a grassy 
hillside where they grow as if wild, until 
the planter comes and harvests his crop. 
Many a botanist visiting a strange tropical 
island has recorded such plants as wild or 
native, when the situation is exactly the re¬ 
verse, the plants being introduced economic 
species planted and owned by a tiller of the 
soil. The noni ( Morinda citrijolia) is also 
a cultivated plant, but it seeds and tends to 
spread in the lowlands. 
Bennett (1832: 257) gave more details 
concerning the sandalwood ( Santalum Frey- 
cinetianum ): 
At the Sandwich Islands, the tree is named iliahi 
or lauhala, signifying sweet wood ( lau, wood, 
hala, sweet) [an error, the meaning being "leaf 
of the hala tree”; Bennett should have written 
laau, wood, aala, sweet]; and, when young, it is 
of very elegant growth. At Wouhala (Island of 
Oahu), I observed numbers of the young trees, 
some of which were covered by a profusion of 
beautiful flowers of a dark red colour; the flowers, 
however, are often observed to differ in colour on 
the same tree, and even on the same stalk; they 
grow in clusters, some having the corolla exter¬ 
nally of a dark red colour, and internally of a 
dull yellow; others having it entirely of a dark 
red, and others again have the corolla partly red 
and white externally; the young leaves are of a 
dark red colour, and give an elegant appearance 
to the tree. This was not observed in the species 
found at the Island of Erromanga; indeed, the 
species found at the Sandwich Islands had a more 
handsome appearance in its growth than that at 
Erromanga. At the Sandwich Islands, two varie¬ 
ties of the wood are observed by the natives, de¬ 
pending, however, only on the age of the tree; the 
young or white wood is called lau, keo keo {lau, 
wood, keo keo, white);,and the red wood, lau, 
hula hula {lau, wood, hula hula, red). [These are 
now written laau, wood; ulaula, red.] As before 
stated, the wood, when taken from a young tree, 
is white, containing but a small quantity of oil; 
as the tree increases in growth, the wood becomes 
of a yellowish colour, and the oldest and best is 
of a brownish red colour.* The different varieties 
of the wood depend, therefore, on the age of the 
tree; and are of three kinds, white, yellow, and 
red; of which the yellow and red, from containing 
the largest quantity of oil, are most esteemed in 
the Chinese market, where the wood is principally 
used, the expressed oil being mixed with pastiles, 
and burned before their idols in the temples. The 
Chinese are said to procure the oil by rasping the 
wood, and then expressing it through strong can¬ 
vass bags. 
* The wood is frequently buried, and the sap 
[sapwood] allowed to rot off: and this is consid¬ 
ered to improve its quality. [Author’s note.] 
By assembling all the data from the plant 
associations and from the habitat, it has 
proved possible to spot Bennett’s locality, 
’'Wouhala,” for the sandalwood. The asso- 
