From Common Forest Trees of Hawaii

Maua
Xylosma hawaiiense
Poplar-Willow family (Salicaceae)

Native species ()

Handsome small native tree mostly of dry forests, with shiny broadly elliptical leaves, edges straight or finely wavy and small greenish or reddish flowers, male and female on different trees. To 60 ft (18 ) tall and 1 1⁄2 ft (0.5 ) in trunk diameter, usually smaller and often only 15 ft (4.6 ) high, with a spreading rounded of slightly drooping branches. Bark gray, smoothish, sometimes warty, becoming thick, rough, and furrowed into small scaly plates. Inner bark is light yellow or orange within the green outermost layer, bitter. Twigs are hairless, dark red and slightly angled when young, becoming gray brown with raised dots and raised half-round leaf scars. End bud 1⁄8 inch (3 ) long, rounded, brown, scaly.


©2006 Forest And Kim Starr
Leaves in two rows, hairless, the young leaves reddish, bronze green, or copper-colored with red veins. leaf-stalks slender, 3⁄8–3⁄4 inch (1–2 ) long, dark red. Blades broadly elliptical, 2–4 inches (5–10 ) long and 1 1⁄4–3 inches (3–7.5 ) wide, slightly thickened, short-pointed, blunt, rounded, or slightly notched, base rounded to short-pointed, edges straight or finely wavy above shiny dark green, beneath slightly shiny green.

Flower clusters () at bases of new leaves or back of leaves, 1⁄2–1 inch (13–25 ) long, unbranched. Flowers mostly male and female on different trees (), several, greenish or reddish, about 1⁄4 inch (6 ) long and broad, without petals, on slender pinkish stalks. Male flowers with cuplike of 4–5 rounded finely hairy or hairless less than 1⁄8 inch (3 ) long and above a many threadlike spreading 1⁄4 inch (6 ) long with dot-like sometimes with Female flowers with 4–5 and composed of elliptical 1-celled sometimes a short and 2–4 flattened stigmas.

() rounded or elliptical, about 1⁄2 inch (13 ) long, bluish, blackish, or reddish, slightly shiny, with at base and stigmas at slightly fleshy or nearly dry, bitter, astringent, and not edible. Seeds one or two, elliptical, about 1⁄4 inch (6 ) long, brown.

Wood is reddish brown with light and dark banding resembling growth rings, heavy, hard, brash, but easily worked.

Widely distributed and common locally in dry forests through the islands, especially on leeward sides, at 800–4500 ft (244–1372 ) elevation. Windswept and stunted where exposed. Found on a‘ā (rough) lava fields.

Borer insects attack and kill the branches.

Special areas
Kokee, Volcanoes, Kipuka Puaulu

Champion
Height 58 ft (17.7 ), c.b.h. 5.1 ft (1.6 ), spread 43 ft (13.1 ). Hoomau Ranch, Honomalino, Hawaii (1968).

Range
Hawaiian Islands only

Botanical
Drypetes forbesii Sherff.

cm -- A centimeter which is about 0.4 inches.

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

disc flowers are those in the center of a sunflower or daisy. Not a ray flower.

dioecious -- When male and female reproductive structures are on separate plants.

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.

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

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.

The anther is a pad at the end of the stamen that holds the pollen.

A raceme is an unbranched, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along its axis.

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.

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

deciduous plants are those that lose all of their leaves for part of the year.

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

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.

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

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

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

The botanical term "berry" is different from common usage. Strawberries and raspberries are not berries. But a tomatoe is. A true berry is a fruit with the seeds immersed in the pulp.

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.