Last Addition: April 21, 2006
Each "thumbnail" image below is linked to a larger photograph.
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Stunning silversword rosettes contrast with the sparsely vegetated, lunar-like, but colorful landscape of Haleakala cinder (East Maui - photo circa 1965). |
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The leaves are clothed with a dense layer of silvery hairs and are arranged in a parabolic rosette that focuses the rays from the sun and elevates the temperature of leaves near the shoot tip as much as 20 degrees C above the surrounding leaves. (photo circa 1965) |
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Silversword Alley, Haleakala, East Maui. |
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Robert Robichaux strokes one of his pets in a typical silversword habitat on the outer slopes near the summit of Haleakala, East Maui. (photo 1983) |
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Silverswords may grow for 50 years or more as a compact rosette before they initiate a flowering stalk in a rapid bolting process that reaches full development in just a few weeks. The number of individuals flowering in a given season (usually June-July) ranges from zero to a few thousand. (photo 1977) |
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A well-formed individual on the floor of the summit depression of Haleakala, East Maui. (photo 1985) |
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A cluster of plants on the floor of Haleakala. |
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This attractive individual is near its peak of floral development. (photo 1985) |
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A striking flowering plant from Silversword Loop in Haleakala (photo 1978) |
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This is a portion of the flowering stalk that may reach a length of 1.5 meters and bear up to 600 heads. (photo 1977 |
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Each head has up to 40 peripheral ray flowers and 600 disk flowers. One of the small native bee pollinators is doing its thing on this head. (photo 1977) |
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Close view of one of the important pollinators (Nesoprosopis volcanica) of the Haleakala silversword. |
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A native tephritid fly whose larvae depend on fruits of the Haleakala silversword. |
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This exceedingly rare mutant form of the Haleakala silversword lacks normal flower pigmentation. (photo 1983) |
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Though this individual is past its prime of floral development, the vista from the brink of the summit depression of East Maui provides a sense of the setting of the Haleakala silversword. (photo 1991) |
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In the waning twilight of life, as seed development proceeds, the reserves accumulated in the rosette over a period of many years are mobilized into the fruiting stalk, and the once succulent leaves become flacid. (photo 1983) |
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Following fruit maturation, the plant dies, seeds are dispersed, and the stalk and depleted leaves begin to disintegrate. Such is the life of a monocarpic plant. Continuation of the species is contingent on the fate of the many seeds produced in this all-out effort. (see the Mauna Kea silversword page for a picture of a seedling) (photo 1980) |