Hāpu’u pulu plants with their massive fronds that can grow to heights of twenty-five feet!
As we hike along the north rim of the Kīlauea Iki trail in Volcanoes National Park in Hawai’i, there was an abundance of forest all around us. This was in stark contrast to the Kīlauea Iki Crater that we could see when looking off to the south through a thin line of what I thought were trees. Down in the crater, it was nothing but the black of a lava flow. The most recent lava flow through this specific crater occurred in 1959, and it left its surface black and crumbled. There was a thin line through the center of the crater where you could see the trail with little ants of people making their way across the barren landscape.
Now back to what I thought were trees. These were in fact ferns; specifically, hāpu’u pulu plants with their massive fronds that can grow to heights of twenty-five feet! The typical plant is six to ten feet tall. Event when they are in the fiddlehead stage of life, you can tell that these are going to be tall plants. There were some along the trail that were starting to unfurl that were already eye level with me as is seen in this featured photo. Below you can see what I was looking at when I would peer straight up at the fully opened plants overhead!
The hāpu’u pulu fern has long had great significance for the Hawaiian culture. Pulu is derived from the silky fibers of this tree fern. It comes from the brown hairs that surround the fiddleheads as they uncoil. The pulu had many uses. It was used to embalm the dead. For women, it was used as an absorbent material during their menstrual cycle. Pulu was used in the 19th century as pillow and mattress stuffing.
Hāpu’u pulu belongs to the Cyatheaceae family of ferns. The tallest ferns in this family grow to be over sixty feet tall. There are about 640 species in this family. The fronds tend to reach nine to twelve feet in length with a final crown being as wide as eighteen feet! There are eight genera in this family of tree ferns.
The tallest ferns in this family grow to be over sixty feet tall
Did you know?
- The scientific name for hāpu’u pulu is Cibotium glaucum.
- Hāpu’u pulu is commonly used in landscaping.
- These plants are very slow growing. Hāpu’u pulu only grow about three and a half inches per year!
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