It was a typical day in the field for then-state Oahu District botanist Margaret Sporck Koehler and her colleagues. They were hiking high in the misty Koolau Mountains, checking on the status of yet another Hawaiian endangered species.
But this time they encountered an oddly different plant no one recognized.
"We were puzzled," Sporck Koehler remembered.
Nearly 21⁄2 years later that plant — a hairy green-leaf Cyanea with a brilliant purple flower — is being recognized as the state’s newest species described to science.
The researchers named the rare find Cyanea konahuanuiensis, which pays homage to the place it was found: near the summit of the 3,150-foot Konahuanui, the tallest peak in the Koolau Range in East Oahu.
The species, with perhaps 20 known individual plants, is described in a research paper published this month in PhytoKeys Journal.
The lead author is Sporck Koehler, now state botanist with the Department of Land and Natural Resources. She came to the islands 10 years ago and obtained her doctorate in botany from the University of Hawaii.
Listed as co-authors are her husband, Tobias Koehler of Koehler Enterprises; Sebastian Marquez of Papahana Kuaola, a nonprofit cultural and environmental initiative in Windward Oahu; Mashuri Waite of Koolau Mountains Watershed Partnership; and Adam Williams of DLNR.
New discoveries of plant species are rare in Hawaii these days, especially on Oahu, where the wilderness has been thoroughly picked over by botanists and other naturalists over many decades.
Perhaps more surprising is the fact these plants escaped detection until now. With their lovely purple blooms, they aren’t exactly diminutive, nondescript creatures hiding from prying scientific eyes.
"It seems to me the reason they hadn’t been described before is simply because they grow in a hard-to-get-to place that very few people go," Sporck Koehler said.
Indeed, the elusive Cyanea only come into view following a rigorous 7-mile round-trip hike to the top of the Koolaus.
On that day in September 2012, the scientists were uncertain exactly what they were looking at. Although it likely was part of the Cyanea genus, they didn’t know which particular taxon it was. At last count there were 79 species of Cyanea.
With no flower to help with identification, they decided to take photos and collect a dropped and decaying leaf for further investigation.
"We thought we could figure it out once we left the field," Sporck Koehler said. "We thought it would be easy to identify."
Quite possibly, she thought, it might be just a matter of looking it up in the Manual of the Flowering Plants of Hawaii, a highly regarded reference for Hawaiian flora.
"But that’s not what happened," she said.
Over the next couple of months Sporck Koehler poured over reference materials and took her photos to local experts. She examined specimens in the vast collections of the Bishop Museum.
"It had that treasure hunt feeling," she said.
Even while her interest morphed into obsession, the botanist still believed the plant’s identity would come to light sooner or later.
"It just never happened," she said.
Eventually she came to the realization this species likely had never been formally identified. But she also knew more investigation would be needed to be certain.
To help in that effort, the researchers turned to technology. Hiking back up Konahuanui, they deployed a cellphone-connected camera that transmitted a photo of one of the plants three times a day. The camera allowed the researchers to monitor flower development from afar and then time their next visit to when they were certain the blooms would be fully mature.
In the meantime a colleague put her in touch with Marquez, of Papahana Kuaola, who had taken pictures on a hike in the same area where the Cyanea was located shortly before Sporck Koehler and her party explored the area. Turns out Marquez, a naturalist, blogger and avid hiker, had among his photographs an image of the same, then-flowerless plant.
Marquez, a native reforestation project manager, was added to the research paper as one of its authors.
As pictures continued to be taken remotely each day, and as the buds began to develop, the suspense was building.
"I didn’t even know what color (the flower) was going to be," Sporck Koehler recalled.
When the bloom finally emerged, the scientists made the trek to the mountain site and captured their first face-to-face viewing of the plant’s brilliant purple flower.
"It was so beautiful," she said. "In person it is the most beautiful purple."
The fuzzy flower was confirmation it was a new species, Sporck Koehler said, because no other known Cyanea on Oahu produces a bloom with pubescence, or hair.
After Marquez sought counsel with Hawaiian cultural practitioners Kaua Neumann and Kihei Nahale, it was proposed to give the species a Hawaiian name, Haha miliohu, meaning "the Cyanea that is caressed by the mist."
Now that C. konahuanuiensis has joined the ranks of documented native Hawaiian species, scientists are left with serious concerns about the plant’s future.
Only 20 mature plants and several immature individuals were found near the mountain summit, and because seedlings are scarce, scientists figure the population is probably declining.
And with so few individuals, the species could be wiped out by a single landslide, hurricane or flash flood, according to the study.
Even if those catastrophic events don’t happen, the plant still might need some extra help if it is to survive the ongoing onslaught of rats, slugs and feral pigs, as well as the competition with invasive plant species, which are becoming increasingly common even in hard-to-access places in Hawaii’s wilderness.
Because this is a critically imperiled species, the paper recommends collecting fruits and seeds for planting in other locations. The paper further recommends initiating a formal study for federal endangered species listing.
The state’s Hawaii Plant Extinction Prevention Program, which focuses on conserving and restoring plants with less than 50 known wild individuals, is already working to save the plant, Sporck Koehler said.
Whatever actions are taken, Sporck Koehler said she will always take a personal interest in this species.
"I can’t help be a little bit personally invested at this point," she said. "I know it better than anyone, and it was a labor of love."
