Tropical Plant Database - Plant Details

Tree to 20 meters high, trunk to 1.5 m in diam. (to 2 m; Brown 1935), bark brown with warty bumps, new growth and branchlets finely brown-gray tomentulose. Leaves peltate, blade ovate 15-41 cm long, 9-31.5 cm wide, apex caudate-acuminate, acuminate, acute, or rarely obtuse, base rounded, truncate or subcordate, at first scattered puberulent, glabrescent or the veins puberulent abaxially, the secondary veins 5-7(-9) on each side, subpalmate from base, venation prominulous on both surfaces, chartaceous to subcoriaceous, uniformly green; petiole 5-28 mm long, 2-3 mm diam., glabrescent, attached 2-5 cm from base of the blade. Inflorescences cymose, axillary, solitary, 14-20 cm long, 5-13 cm wide, the peduncle 10-12 cm long, finely brown-gray tomentulose, glabrescent, longer than the petiole; cymes branching to second degree, the axes finely brown-gray tomentulose, primary branches 3-4, often subtended by a petiolate or sessile, foliose pubescent bract 2-8 cm long, transitioning into sessile, lanceolate or spatulate, puberulent bracts 1-2 cm long in the upper portion; cymules usually composed of one female (pistillate) and two male (staminate) flowers subtended by a whorl of (3)4 ovate-elliptic bracts 5-10 mm long, 3-4 mm wide; flowers puberulent without, white and fragrant when fresh, 10-12 mm in diam. Pistillate flowers on pedicel 2 mm long, ovary inferior, ellipsoid or spheroidal, contracted above into a short neck, perianth composed of 2 whorls of 4 linear-oblong segments each, the outer calyx-like, 9-10 mm long, the inner white, petal-like, 6-7 mm long, style about 4 mm long, pubescent, with 3-4 staminodes at the base; stigma fleshy, pink, deeply 4-lobed. Staminate flowers on pedicel 7-10 mm long, perianth white, in 2 whorls of 3 obovate-elliptic segments each, 7-9 mm long, the inner slightly shorter, stamens 3, anthers 2-3 mm long, the filament pubescent, 1-2 mm long with 2 basal glands. Infructescence with peduncle to 20 cm long; involucral cup a pedicel 5-10 mm long, broadly ellipsoid or subglobose-depressed, 4-5 cm in diam., glabrous, yellow-green, turning pink or red when ripe, fleshy, 1-2 mm thick, with a small 2-beaked opening at apex, which is more or less closed by apex of mature drupe; drupe obovoid, 30-32 mm long, 15-20 mm in diam., on a pedicel 5-10 mm long, apex beaked, pericarp black, 1 mm thick, conspicuously 8-costate, rugose between the costae, endocarp 0.5 mm thick, 1-seeded. Single seed enclosed by indehiscent drupe, subglobose, c. 18 mm in diam.

Notes: In the Marquesas little or no use was made of the tree, although it was said that an extract obtained from the fruit acts as a depilatory.
(F. Brown 1935)

Endemic to the Marquesas Islands.

The native name of the species is puka or pimata mei in Nuku Hiva.

Status: Endemic

We currently have 13 herbarium specimens for Hernandia nukuhivensis in our collection. Click on any specimen below to view the herbarium sheet data.

• 006431 - collected by David H. Lorence in 1988
• 006432 - collected by David H. Lorence in 1988
• 008327 - collected by Steve Perlman in 1988
• 008328 - collected by Steve Perlman in 1988
• 021994 - collected by Steve Perlman in 1995
• 028607 - collected by K. R. Wood in 1997
• 039466 - collected by David H. Lorence in 2003
• 039422 - collected by David H. Lorence in 2003
• 042182 - collected by K. R. Wood in 2004
• 042192 - collected by K. R. Wood in 2004
• 042250 - collected by Steve Perlman in 2004
• 044779 - collected by David H. Lorence in 2006
• 060711 - collected by David H. Lorence in 2008