Family: PANDANACEAE
Genus: Freycinetia
Species: cumingiana
Species Author: Gaudich.
Description: Freycinetia is an evergreen climber with stems that can grow from 0.5-2 meters long. The slender roots of Freycinetia grow along the stem attaching the plant to the tree or shrub on which it is growing. The leaves of Freycinetia cumingiana are dark green, linear-oblong, and leathery and can grow up to 25 cm long. The male (staminate) and female (pistillate) flowers are found on different plants and both are densely arranged within cylindrical spikes (inflorescences). Clusters of 3 or 4 inflorescences containing either male or female flowers are borne at the ends of branches above several showy pinkish-orange bracts that form beneath the inflorescenses.
(Staples, G. W. and D. R. Herbst. 2005. A Tropical Garden Flora: Plants cultivated in the Hawaiian Islands and other tropical places. Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu, Hawai`i.)
(Wagner, W. L., Herbst, D. R., and S. H. Sohmer. 1999. Manual of the Flowering Plants of Hawai`i. Revised Edition. Volume 2. Bishop Museum Special Publication 97. University of Hawai`i Press, Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu, Hawai`i.)
Freycinetia cumingiana is native to Tropical Asia, Malesia and Philippines. This species is cultivated on Maui for sale as cut flowers throughout the US. The genus Freycinetia includes 180 species distributed throughout the Tropics throughout Sri Lanka, the Pacific including Marquesas, Hawaii, Austral, Society, Cook, New Caledonia, and Samoan Islands), Australia and New Zealand.
(Mabberley, D. J., 1997. The Plant-Book: A portable dictionary of the vascular plants. Second edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England.)
Birds, bats, and climbing small mammals may act as pollinators, transferring the pollen from the staminate (male) flowers to the pistillate (female) flowers, and fruit dispersers of Freycinetia.
(Mabberley, D. J., 1997. The Plant-Book: A portable dictionary of the vascular plants. Second edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England.)
Freycinetia was named for Admiral Louis de Freycinet (1779-1842), the 19th century French navigator and explorer, who was the commander of the circumglobal expedition on which Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré (1789-1854) was the botanist. Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré was the botanist who first collected and described the genus Freycinetia.
We currently have 2 herbarium specimens for Freycinetia cumingiana in our collection. Click on any specimen below to view the herbarium sheet data.
- 018461 - collected by Tim Flynn in 1986
- 066821 - collected by Hank Oppenheimer in 2013
