From Common Forest Trees of Hawaii

Pilo Kea
Melicope spathulata
Rue Or Citrus family (Rutaceae)

Native species ()

This aromatic shrub or small tree has a strong odor of pepsin when crushed, paired often with very large oblong to leaves with dots visible under a lens, few large creamy white four-parted flowers at leaf bases, and four- capsules. To 40 ft (12 ) high and 8 inches (20 ) in trunk diameter, usually much smaller, 10–20 ft (3–6.1 ), with spreading branches leafy toward the end. Twigs stout, greenish when young, becoming pale gray and hairless, with large raised triangular leaf scars.


©2007 John Game
Leaves with long slender leafstalk of 3⁄8–2 1⁄4 inches (1–6 ), enlarged at base, finely hairy when young. Blades oblong to 4–20 inches (110–511 ) long and 1–8 inches (2.5–20 ) wide, blunt at both ends, often turned under at edges, thick and leathery, with fine nearly straight side veins, above green to dark green and hairless, beneath paler and sometimes finely hairy on veins, with dots visible under a lens.

Flower clusters () at leaf bases, with mostly 3–5 short-stalked flowers at the end of stalks of about 1 inch (2.5 ). Flowers about 5⁄8–3⁄4 inch (15–19 ) long, not fragrant, composed of of four overlapping rounded green about 3⁄8 inch (10 ) long, four large spreading creamy white petals 5⁄8–3⁄4 inch (15–19 ) long, eight white united in tube of 1⁄2 inch (13 ), and with four- four-celled slender and four-grooved

(capsules) rounded, four- about 1 inch (25 ) in diameter, hairless, splitting into four parts, with at base. Seeds 5–8, elliptical, rounded, shiny black.

Wood dull whitish yellow and soft, subject to bluestain fungi and without growth rings.

Uncommon in wet forests at 2000–5000 ft (610–1524 ) altitude.

Special area
Kokee

Range
Kauai, Oahu, Maui, and Hawaii only

A few additional varieties and forms of this variable species have been named. This is confined to Hawaii and has three other species of shrubs. Stone wrote a monograph about the (1962).

An evergreen tree retains a large portion of its green leaves all year.

mm -- millimeter. About 1/25th of an inch.

style -- This is a long and thread-like structure that connects the stigma with the ovary. A flower may have a single style, or several of them.

cm -- A centimeter which is about 0.4 inches.

In an opposite leaf arrangement the leaves come in pairs with one leaf on each side of a stem.

lobe -- Rounded parts of a leaf (or other organ). Lobes bulge out about 1/4 of the leaf diameter.

m -- A meter is about 10% larger than a yard.

Glands are plant structures that secrete liquids, salts or other substances. Glands often appear as hairs with a drop of liquid at the end.

calyx -- the sepals of a flower, typically forming a whorl that encloses the petals and forms a protective layer around a flower in bud.

fruit -- any seed-bearing structure in flowering plants. It is formed from the ovary after flowering.

stamen -- the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower; The stamen consists of an anther supported by a filament.

Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom.

cyme -- Multiple flower stalks emerge from a single point and the flowers at the end bloom first.

obovate -- Teardrop-shaped, stem attaches to tapering point.

stigma - The tip of a pistil that receives the pollen.

An ovary is a part of the female reproductive organ of the flower. Above the ovary is the style and the stigma, which is where the pollen lands and germinates to grow down through the style to the ovary.

genus -- A subdivision of a botanical Family in which all members have a significant number of similar characteristics.

A pistil is the female structure of many flowers. It contains one or more carpels. Each carpel contins an ovary, style and stigma. The stigma receives the pollen which grows thru the style to reach the ovary.

endemic -- when restricted to a certain country or area.