Clermontia grandiflora
Genus: Clermontia sect. Clermontia with petaloid sepals.
includes subspecies munroi found across all of Maui Nui has a narrow perianth, 5 to 9 times longer than wide; grandiflora found on West Maui with a perianth 3 to 5 times longer than wide and maxima from a single specimen found on Haleakala that Lammers could not refer to either of the preceding subspecies with a flower twice as large as subsp. munroi.
Status: Lower Risk/near threatened (2.3)
Range: Moloka'i, Lāna'i and Maui, wet forest and bog margins, 530-1,975 m.
Growth form: Shrub, 1-6 m tall.
This species, along with Cl. oblongifolia and Cl. persicifolia, is in Gaudichaud's first description of Clermontia.
How to identify: Two species of Clermontia have particularly long peduncles that can reach 5 cm long: our Cl. grandiflora which is found across Maui Nui and the other, Clermontia drepanomorpha, endemic to the big island.
Description: In habit: it is variable; Rock says that in shaded localities it is a small tree reaching 6m but that on the ridges of Lāna'i it is a shrub. Lammers says it is sometimes, though rarely, epiphytic. Wimmers describes it as either sprawling and weakly branched shrub or densely leafy single trunked twiggy tree. Leaves are dull and chartaceous, the shape is variable ranging from obovate to elliptic or oblong, 4 to 15 cm long, 1.5 to 4.5 cm wide, the apex is acute to acuminate or cuspidate, the base acuminate, the margins are bluntly dentate, glabrous. Petioles up to 5 cm long, though again the range is quite large.
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