Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Trees or shrubs, sometimes epiphytic, or root–climbing lianas.

Stems: Branching monopodial or sympodial, bud scales present or absent.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades dorsiventral. Margins entire. Subsessile to petiolate. Stipules vestigial or absent.

Flowers: Flowers in pedicellate or sessile, in axillary or axillary and terminal, cymose, usually pedunculate inflorescences, these sometimes reduced to a single flower, often aggregated into compound inflorescences, sometimes ramiflorous. Flowers bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic. Hypanthium well–developed above ovary. Calyx of (3)4–5(6) distinct sepals. Corolla of (3)4–5(6), distinct, sometimes caducous. Stamens numerous, 2 or more times as long as petals, rarely less, usually in a single series, sometimes in 2–3 series; anthers dithecal. Ovary nearly superior, distinct; usually 3-celled, placentas axile, peltate; ovules numerous, anatropous; style 1; stigma small.

Fruit: Capsules included to exserted; with the style base and placentas either remaining close together as in the flower or becoming separated by extension of intervening tissue. Seeds narrowly linear to filiform.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range:

Historical Distribution

Images

Accepted Subtaxa (in Hawai'i) (9)

Metrosideros collina (J.R.Forst. & G.Forst.) A.Gray

Metrosideros excelsa Sol. ex Gaertn.

Metrosideros kermadecensis W.R.B.Oliv.

Metrosideros macropus Hook. & Arn.

Metrosideros polymorpha Gaudich.

Metrosideros polymorpha × Metrosideros waialealae

Metrosideros rugosa A.Gray

Metrosideros tremuloides (A.Heller) Knuth

Metrosideros waialealae (Rock) Rock

Uses and Culture

USES

Red, yellow, pink, white, orange dye (flowers), green, purplish, reddish, grey, dye shiny, hairy (leaves)
The flower of the "‘ōhi‘a a-pane" is used as a medicine for childbirth. Also the young leaf buds are used to treat muhe‘e kea (pale) in babies (Chun 1998:43).
Wood for images (ki‘i), posts and rafters, fences for temples, firewood, canoes (Malo 1951:20), construction of luakini heiau (Malo 1951:159), flowers and young leaf buds for lei (Abbott 1992:126–127); bowls (but difficult to work, see Abbott 1992:87). Placed on hula altars for Kuka‘ohi‘a Laka (Abbott 1992:117). Musical instruments (Krauss 1993:80). In the Ethnology Collection at Bishop Museum there is a post-contact example of the wood made into a bowl.

CULTURE

The Pele Sisters Hopoe, befriended by Hi‘iaka whom she plants a forest of red & white lehua blossoms for in the Puna district (Beckwith 1970:176, 181). "Kuka'ohi'aakalaka" (Pukui 1995:19,111). "The Despotic Chiefs of Ka'u:Kohaikalani" (Pukui 1995:75,131). "The Story of Kahalaopuna" KAHALAOPUNA is beaten to death with an ‘ōhi‘a branch, then buried beneath an ‘ōhi‘a tree. From there, her spirit leapt to the top of the tree, where it is seen by her searching parents (Beckwith 1970:152). "He Kaao no Kahalaopuna" PALILA takes the form of a lehua tree. PALILA placed the jaws of the slain on an ‘ōhi‘a tree called KAHAKAAUWAE (Fornander [v.5 part i] 1918:191). "He Kaao no Palila" (Fornander [v.5 part i] 1918:141, 153).
Kinolau of Kāne, Ku, Palila and Laka.

PROPAGATION/CULTIVATION

Collect fresh unsoaked seeds, sprinkle onto firm, moist potting medium and water daily for the 1st year, fertilize monthly; 2 foot plant can be grow in 1 year; use sterile potting soil, not dirt; strong 6-12 inch can be planted in ground. Also by cuttings and air layering (Bornhorst 1996:61–64; Bornhorst and Rauch 1994:16–17; Nagata 1992).