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Ma’o – The Native Cotton of Hawaii

Posted: February 9, 2008

I love exploring the dry forests of Hawaii to search for ma’o — the native cotton — which produces one of the more attractive flowers in the native landscape.   Ma’o grows as a shrub some 2-3 feet high and has distinctive silvery green leaves with bright yellow flowers. 

Ma’o (Gossypium tomentosum) is endemic to the Hawaiian Islands — it is found nowhere else in the world.  In my hiking travels around the Hawaiian Islands, I have found ma’o along the Ka Iwi Coast of O’ahu, on the coastal plains at Kihei on Maui, and on the hills of Kaunolu on Lana’i. 

Ma’o grows on the parched grassy hills at Kaunolu on the south shore of Lana’i at the site of an old fishing village and heiau.  In this photo, ma’o grows as a shrub 2 feet high in the foreground along with pili grass.  The rock walls in the background are the remains of Halulu Heiau, which was rebuilt by Kamehameha I after he conquered Lana’i in 1795.     

Ma’o is the native cotton — it has seed fibers just like the plant used for commercial cotton production.  While ma’o is not grown commercially it has been used in breeding programs to transfer disease resistance and other desirable traits to commercial cotton.

This close-up of a ma’o flower growing on the dry coastal plains of Kihei on Maui, shows how the flower somewhat resembles a small hibiscus flower 2-3 inches across.  One of the more distinctive features of ma’o is its striking white stigma which curls at the top in the very center of the flower. 

The Hawaiians used the flowers of ma’o to create a yellow dye and its leaves for a green dye for kapa.  Ma’o was also combined with other plants in medicinal preparations to treat a number of ailments. 

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 Sources:

Hawaiian Native Plant Propagation Database
Hawaiian Ethobotany Online Database