Hawaiian tree-fern

Description:

Cibotium glaucum is a slow growing rhizome forming fern. Overtime it will produce a prostrate trunk covered in mustard/brown hairs, with the trunk reaching 3m (10ft) in height. Like many Cibotium species the plant is very slow growing, putting on only about an inch of trunk every year. Fronds can grow to reach 3m x 16cm (10ft x 6 inches) and are a light green when mature. The undersides of fronds have a distinctive glaucous (light blue green colour) and are usually covered with fine pale hairs.

Habitat:

Growing alongside the lower section of path leading up to the falls from Lyon Arboretum.

Notes:

The soft hairs around the base of the fronds, were used by early Hawaiians for dressing wounds and embalming bodies. Hawaiians have also eaten the uncoiled fronds (croziers), which were considered delicious when boiled. The starchy core, though, was famine food. But it was considered the most important food in lean times and one trunk may contain 50-70 pounds of almost pure starch. The export of soft hairs from the frond bases, had a negative impact on the Hawaiian forests. These hairs or ‘Pulu’ were gathered for pillow and mattress stuffing material. Tall tree ferns were cut down to gather the pulu more easily. From 1851 to 1884, several hundred thousand pounds of pulu were collected annually from the Kilauea region on Hawaii Island and shipped to North America with a peak in 1862 of over 738,000 lbs. From 50-75 people worked at the “Pulu Factory” in now Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. After 1865, the exporting decreased until finally in the 1880′s superior stuffing materials replaced pulu. Then around 1920, a brief period of demand for the starchy cores for commercial laundry and cooking starch surfaced. The onslaught seriously altered the native forests by removing the understory and thus making room for alien species to invade the forests. Pulu gathers often would often kill the entire plant for the pulu on the top.