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Giant Age-Old Ohia Trees
Posted: October 9, 2008
I love to photograph ohia lehua trees (Metrosideros polymorpha), especially the big old gnarled trees that have withstood the test of time. Ohia are slow-growing trees. It takes 400-500 years for them to reach 6 feet in diameter. Trees of this age have lived through huricanes, earthquakes, and other natural calamities. Their burls, twists, and scars stand testiment to the fact that they are survivors.
This exceptional ohia tree covered in native mosses and ferns–ekaha, kupukupu, and hapuu–grows in the wet rainforests of East Maui. This tree is about 200 years old.
When ohia trees reach a certain size in montane and mesic forests, they grow side trunks in an attempt to elevate the main trunk off the ground. Known as “walking lehua”, ohia trees sprout “legs” to buttress the tree in a horizontal position. This tree grows in the mesic forests of Kokee on Kauai.
This giant walking lehua has strong “legs” to support the thick trunk. This big old ohia tree grows in the mesic forests of Kokee on Kauai. A commuity of plants and animals live in and around these giant ohia trees.
Some of the largest walking lehua are at Puu Makaala in Volcano, Hawaii. Puu Makala is situated in a kipuka with deep rich soil. As a result, the trees and ferns at Puu Makaala are robust and grow to impressive size. Ohia can reach giant proportions at Puu Makaala with some trees over 8 feet in diameter.
Many ohia trees have become walking lehua–tree that grow side trunks upon which to elevate themselves off the ground to assume a horizonal stance. Ohia seedlings also grow on mature ohia trees, send trunks and roots down to the ground, and create a complex scaffold of trees high in the air. These giant ohia trees are often 500 years old and can grow to a hundred feet high. Here is a photo of me standing under a large giant walking lehua at Puu Makaala.
Growing on this giant ohia tree are olapa, lapalapa, naio , painiu, alaalawainui, ohelo papa and a host of mosses and ferns such as wahine noho mauna, ekaha, hapuu, and kupukupu. Well over a dozen species live in this symbiotic community. In this photo you can see the trunks and roots of other trees snake their way down a thick “leg”of the giant walking lehua. These trees create a community of trees and plants high in the canopy above the forest floor below.
This symbiotic community of ohia and other plants occupies an area 40 feet by 30 feet and is over 60 feet high. Over a dozen different species of trees, plants, ferns and mosses grow together in a complex high in the air.
Here is a photo of the same walking lehua from a different perspective. Note the heavy growth of green moss on its trunk. This community of plants in the rainforest creates a three dimensional structure high in the tree canopy for native forest birds. As you look up the tree from the ground below you can hear the fluttering of wings and see native birds darting about on the tree branches above. These giant trees are some of the largest ohia trees in the Hawaiian Islands and make at Puu Makaala a fascinating place to visit.