Haleakala Cyanea (Cyanea pohaku)
This species occurred at the Pu’unianiau peak at the northwestern slopes of the Haleakala volcano on the island of Maui, Hawaiian Islands.
The discoverer and author of the species wrote about it.:
“Today certain species have survived in a particular locality, from which they cannot spread, as they are surrounded by grazing animals which devour eagerly any germinating plant, thus precluding the establishment of a progeny, and they are thus doomed to extinction. Clermontia Haleakalensis [Cyanea pohaku], for example, has already disappeared. A few years ago three healthy trees existed of this species. It is true they were surrounded by their enemies, the cattle, which browsed on their lowest branches and trampled under foot or devoured any seedling which might have dared show its cotyledons above ground even in what must now considered unnatural surroundings and among foreign plant associates. Today the species has become extinct; not even a vestige of the trunks of these giants of Lobelioids remains to bear testimony to their previous existence. Fortunately, the writer photographed these trees when he discovered them, the only record besides herbarium specimens.
Numerous may have been the species which lived in remote places and became extinct before they were discovered.”
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References:
[1] Joseph F. Rock: A monographic study of the Hawaiian species of the tribe Lobelioideae, family Campanulaceae. Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Polynesian Ethnology and Natural History 7: 1-394. 1918
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(public domain)
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edited: 04.04.2018