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Diospyros

L. (1753)

This name is accepted

Kingdom: Viridiplantae Phylum: Magnoliophyta Class/Clade: Eudicot-Asterids Order: Ericales Family: Ebenaceae Genus: Diospyros

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Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Trees or shrubs, usually with hard, dark red or black wood, pubescence usually of simple hairs, sometimes the hairs branched or glandular.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate or sometimes subopposite. Blades elliptic, oblong, or lanceolate. Margins entire. Petiolate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in pistillate flowers usually solitary, staminate ones few in cymes. Flowers usually small, unisexual (and the plants usually dioecious or sometimes monoecious), actinomorphic. Calyx 3–7-lobed, usually accrescent and persistent. Corolla 3–7-lobed, the lobes imbricate, convolute, or valvate. Stamens 3 to numerous, usually twice as many as corolla lobes and often paired, the pistillate flowers with 0–16 staminodes; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits or rarely by apical pores. Ovary superior, 3–8(–10)-celled, each carpel often divided by a central partition so that there are twice as many cells as carpels, vestigial in staminate flowers, placentation apical-axile; ovules 1(2) per cell, pendulous, anatropous or apotropous; styles 1–4, nearly distinct to connate.

Fruit: Fruit usually a juicy to leathery or chartaceous berry; rarely a capsules; globose or ellipsoid; subtended by the persistent; often enlarged calyx. Seeds 4–8; fewer than ovules; oblong–ovoid to crescent–shaped; usually compressed; seed coat thin; endosperm copious and hard.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range:

Historical Distribution

Images

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Uses and Culture

USES

  • Hard wood used for god images, house posts, and house fences (Malo 1951:21), fences of mapele or unu o Lono (type of heiau) (Malo 1951:160, 189); fruits eaten (Hillebrande 1888:275; Krauss 1993:16). Lama is a sacred plant, and a uncarved block of wood placed on hula altar (kuahu) wrapped in yellow kapa (usually wauke, Broussonetia papyrifera, scented with ‘ōolena, Cucurma longa) to represent Laka (Mitchell 1982:51); sticks in fish traps (Krauss 1993:41), name means "light", and connotates "enlightenment" (Pukui and Elbert 1986:192). [All these uses seem most associated with D. sandwincensis]. In the Ethnology Collection at Bishop Museum there is a post-contact example of the wood made into a bowl.

  • Lama is not a primary medicinal plant, but can be found as a secondary ingredient in many remedies. For cuts, boils, abcesses, bruises, and cold sores powdered lama is mixed with crushed ‘ahu‘awa (Cyperus javanicus) (Chun 1994:15). In the cleansing of puho and kaupo the bark of ‘ahakea (Bobea spp.), ‘āla‘a (Pouteria sandwicensis), and ‘auko‘i stalk (Senna occidentalis) are used, and then ‘ulu sap (Artocarpus altilis) with powdered ‘ahu‘awa and lama are placed on the affected area (Chun 1994:73). For "burns on the rear end" and puho puhi ka‘oka‘o lama ashes are combined with kawa‘u (Ilex anomala?) and ‘ahu‘awa as a salve (Chun 1994:142). For infected sores, including puho ‘a‘ai, the green flesh of the kukui fruit is cooked in kī leaves (ti, Cordyline fruticosa) and combined with ‘ulu sap, powdered ‘ahu‘awa, and powdered lama; the mixture is applied as a salve (Chun 1994:171). For palaki‘o (whitish flesh bumps) limu ‘ekaha (?) is mixed with ‘ulu sap and lama powder, and maybe he‘i (papaya, Carica papaya) as an ointment (Chun 1994:182). For ‘ea, pa‘ao‘ao, and pala o ka waha in children, dried limu lipoa kuahiwi (?moss) and lipoa kai (cf. Dictyopteris spp.) are mixed with powdered lama and milky sap from the kukui and ‘ulul fruits. To be placed on the affected parts (Chun 1994:190). For the illnesses palaki‘o, puho wai nui, puka puhi and cuts, ashes from limu ‘onohiawa (Chara zeylanica), kūkaepua‘a (Digitaria setigera), paka (tobacco, Nicotiana spp.), and powdered lama are mixed with the milky sap of the he‘i and smeared on the affected parts (Chun 1994:194). For treatment of pu‘upu‘u nunui, kolekole ‘a‘ai, and puho, the ashes of ‘ohe (Schizostachyum glaucifolium) are mixed with dried powder of ‘ahu‘awa and lama, with the milky sap of he‘i and green kukui fruits and applied to the areas affected (Chun 1994:223). For ‘ea muhe‘e lehua and pa‘ao‘ao, a combination of red leaf buds of lehua hamau and lehua ‘apane (Metrosideros spp.), are fermented with the leaves, fruit, and leaf buds of the lama; it is then cooked, strained, and fed to children (Chun 1994: 227–228). As a finish for treatments of cuts and abscesses ‘ahu‘awa and lama powders are spinkled (Chun 1994:234, 235).

CULTURE

  • Anelike ate only pi‘oi, or lama berries. "Anelike, The Rolling Sweet Potato Island" (Pukui 1995:102)

PROPAGATION/CULTIVATION

  • Intermediate. Fresh seeds covered with 1/4 in potting medium, water regularly; slow growing as time goes on; pot sprouts after 1st phase of root growth in a tall, well drained pot; needs careful nurture once planted in ground, needs certain mauka forest soils to thrive (Bornhorst 1996:66–67; Culliney and Koebele 1999:98–101).

Natural History

Island Status

Dispersal Agents


Pollinators

Bibliography

Name Published In: Sp. Pl.: 1057 (1753)

Occurrences

SNo. Scientific Name Scientific Name Authorship Locality Habitat Basis of Record Recorded By Record Number Island Source Date
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