From Common Forest Trees of Hawaii

Keahi
Sideroxylon polynesicum
Bully family (Sapotaceae)

Native species (indigenous)

This small tree of dry lowland forests, with milky sap and many dark purple or brown like olives, is recognized also by the rusty brown hairs of young foliage, lower leaf surfaces, twigs, and flowers.


©2008 David Eickhoff
A small tree to 33 ft (10 ) high and 1 ft (0.3 ) in trunk diameter, with a rounded of spreading and drooping branches, or a shrub. Bark gray, rough, thick, becoming furrowed into rectangular plates. Twigs long, with raised half-round leaf-scars and round hairy buds and their scars.

Leaves scattered along twigs, with slender leaf-stalks mostly 3⁄4–1 1⁄4 inches (2–3 ) long. Blades elliptical, 1 1⁄4–3 1⁄4 inches (3–8 ) long and 3⁄4–2 inches (2–5 ) wide, blunt or rounded at both ends, turned under at edges, thick and leathery, upper surface shiny green and hairless, lower surface with pressed rusty brown hairs and often becoming nearly hairless in age.

Flowers many, 1–5 at leaf base or on twig back of leaves on stalks of 1⁄4 inch (6 ), rusty hairy, fragrant, 3⁄16 inch (5 ) long and wide, composed of hairy with usually 4–5 (3–6) overlapping pointed urn-shaped greenish white hairless with short tube usually 7–9 (5–12) pointed, rounded, or usually 7–9 (5–12) small inserted on base of and and with elliptical hairy of usually 3–5 (2–6) cells, one ovule in each cell, short stout and dot

(berries) elliptical, many along twigs 1⁄4–5⁄8 inch (12–15 ) long and 3⁄8 inch (10 ) wide, shiny dark purple or brown, with and base and pointed at with thin flesh, not edible. Seed single, elliptical or rounded, 5⁄16 inch (8 ) long, shiny brown, with large rounded scar at base. many, from May to September.

The hard durable wood apparently has not been used.

Scattered in dry forests through the Hawaiian Islands at 400–2000 ft (122–610 ) altitude. Formerly common, now rare.

Special area
Wahiawa

Range
Oahu, Molokai, Maui, Hawaii; also Raivavae, Rapa in South Pacific

Botanical
Nesoluma polynesicum (Hillebr.) Baill., Chrysophyllum polynesicum Hillebr.

This variable species has several named forms generally not distinguished.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

alternate -- leaves alternate along the main stem and are attached singly.

Like the teeth on a saw, leaves and other surfaces can have toothed edges.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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