Lobelia hypoleuca
Genus: Lobelia section Revolutella.
Range: All islands except Ni'ihau and Kaho'olawe, mesic to wet forest, 600-1,500 m.
Growth form: Treelet, 1.5-3.0 m tall.
This species has the widest range of all the Hawaiian lobeliads. It is morphologically quite variable, but Lammers (Wagner et al. 1999) says that no discernable geographic pattern was found. It is a small, erect treelet leafy on the upper half of the stem. It is noted for the thick white tomentose on the underside of the leaves.
How to identify: A suite of 3 traits: 1) densely white tomentose on the leaf undersurface
2) Leafy on the upper 1/2 of stem, not an apical rosette and 3) growing erect.
Description An erect treelet, 1.5 - 3 m tall, the hollow primary stem 1 m tall, branching above, loosely leafy on the upper half of the long branches leading to an erect, terminal raceme.
Sources:
- Hillebrand, 1888;
- Rock, 1919 (including forma macrophyta);
- Rock, 1919 (the Kaua'i specimen of L. grayana (=L. neriifolia) is L. hypoleuca);
- Wimmer, 1953 (including f. macrophyta and var. heterocarpa);
- Wimmer, 1968 (as f. macrophyta and var. heterocarpa);
- Wagner et al., 1990.