From Common Forest Trees of Hawaii

Alahe'e
Psydrax odorata
Madder family (Rubiaceae)

Native species ()

This common handsome shrub or small tree of wide distribution in dry lowlands has a round or shiny bright green leaves, which are paired, small, and elliptical, the small fragrant white flowers, and small rounded black To 20 ft (6 ) high and 4 inches (10 ) in trunk diameter, smaller in exposed areas. Trunk very straight, erect, with distinctly horizontal branches. Bark light to dark gray, smoothish; inner bark pale yellow or light brown, slightly bitter. Twigs hairless, green when young, slightly four-angled with rings at enlarged becoming gray and slightly scaly.


©2006 Forest And Kim Starr
Leaves hairless, with short yellowish or light green leaf-stalks 1⁄8 inch (3 ) long and paired small pointed () at base. Blades elliptical, 1 1⁄4–2 1⁄2 inches (3–6 ) long and 5⁄8–1 1⁄4 inches (1.5–3 ) wide, slightly thickened and leathery, blunt at both ends and slightly turned under at edges, above shiny green with few fine veins, beneath dull light green.

Flower clusters (cymose ) less than 1 inch (2.5 ) long at leaf bases, flattened. Flowers many, fragrant, on slender stalks 5⁄16 inch (8 ) long, composed of green base () less than 1⁄8 inch (3 ) long bearing five teeth and tubular white 3⁄16 inch (5 ) long bearing five finely hairy meeting at edges in bud; five short attached in notches of and with inferior two-celled slender and slightly two-

() are rounded, 5⁄16 inch (8 ) in diameter, black, with a ring at juicy, containing two stones or nutlets.

Wood whitish or light brown, very hard, reported to be durable. Hawaiians used it for tools in tilling the soil and for adze blades for cuffing softer woods such as kukui and wiliwili.

It is reported that the leaves provided a black dye. Common and widespread in dry areas from sea level to 3800 ft (1158 ) altitude through the islands, even on exposed windswept slopes.

Special areas
Waimea Arboretum, Wahiawa, Bishop Museum, Kamehameha School Hawaiian Garden, Volcanoes

Champion
Height 39 ft (11.9 ), c.b.h. 3.7 ft (1. 1 ), spread 18 ft (5.5 ). Puuwaawaa, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii (1968).

Range
Through Hawaiian Islands, and in Polynesia but not New Zealand, New Hebrides, or Fiji. One of several native tree species not confined or to Hawaii.

Other common names
walahe‘e, plectronia, ‘ōhe‘e

Botanical
Canthium odoratum (G. Forst.) Seem.
Plectronia odorata (G. Forst.) F. Muell.

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

cm -- A centimeter which is about 0.4 inches.

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

stipule -- A leaf-like structure that occurs where the leaf joins the stem; stipules often occur in pairs.

corymb -- a much-branched inflorescence with the lower flowers having long stems.

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

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

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.

scale -- A very small leaf around a dormant bud. Also other things that might remind one of fish scales on the surface of ferns, stems and the like.

The apex is the tip or the furthest point from the attachment.

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.

node -- The point at which there is attached growth, as in the place where each leaf is attached.

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.

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.

drupe -- A fruit in which an outer fleshy part surrounds a hardened shell containing a seed. A peach is a drupe. A raspberry is composed of drupelets.

canopy -- The foliage of a tree; the crown. Also the upper layer of a forest.

synonym -- In botany a synonym is a species name that at one time was thought to be the correct name for a plant but was later found to be incorrect and has been replaced by a new name.

The hypanthium or floral cup is a cup-like structure formed by the fused bases of the stamens, petals, and sepals.

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

corolla -- The name for all the petals of a flower taken together.

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.