PA`INIU-ASTELIA-MENZIESIANA

PA`INIU (ASTELIA MENZIESIANA)

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS

  • herbaceous plant with no woody stems
  • leaves up to two feet long, narrow, upward pointing and growing from an overlapping basal cluster
  • leaves folded lengthwise, with an elongate concave trough in the center of the leaf
  • upper surface of leaf shiny green and the lower surface white-silver; no spines on edge
  • a native lily whose cream colored flowers are numerous and small, not showy

TRADITIONAL HAWAIIAN USES

  • silvery leaf epidermis stripped and used with other foliage in making lei
  • whole leaves now commonly used in lei

RAIN FOREST ECOLOGY

  • shallow rooted; vulnerable to pig rototilling activities; leaves very palatable to pigs
  • a few scattered individuals of pa`iniu, a shade tolerant species, survived four decades of kahili ginger dominance
  • pa`iniu now spreading vegetatively from surviving individuals in over 50 sites in Ni`aulani, even under dense tree fern canopy, now that it’s protected from pigs and ginger
  • pa`iniu also grows in Ni`aulani on nurse logs or lateral tree branches

 

entire-PA`INIU-ASTELIA-MENZIESIANA-plant
Entire pa`iniu plant, with flowers, growing in Ni`aulani Rain Forest. The undersides of the leaves are silvery in color.

HOW TO SAY “PA`INIU” IN HAWAIIAN