Angiosperms (Flowering Plants) • Earth.com

Golden hala pepe

(Dracaena aurea)

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Description

Dracaena aurea, the golden hala pepe, is a species of flowering plant that is endemic to the island of Kauaʻi in Hawaii. It inhabits coastal mesic and mixed mesic forests at elevations of 120–1,070 m (390–3,510 ft). It is a small evergreen tree, usually 4.6–7.6 m (15–25 ft) tall, but sometimes reaches 12 m (39 ft). The gray, straight trunk does not have bark and is 0.3–0.9 m (0.98–2.95 ft) in diameter. The sword-shaped leaves are 20–51 cm (7.9–20.1 in) long and 1–3 cm (0.39–1.18 in) wide. It was first described by Horace Mann Jr. as Dracaena aurea in 1867. In 1914, N. E. Brown moved it to the genus Pleomele. The World Checklist of Selected Plant Families rejects the move. Dracaena is a genus of about 120 species of trees and succulent shrubs. The formerly accepted genera Pleomele and Sansevieria are now included in Dracaena. In the APG IV classification system, it is placed in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Nolinoideae (formerly the family Ruscaceae).It has also formerly been separated (sometimes with Cordyline) into the family Dracaenaceae or placed in the Agavaceae (now Agavoideae). The name dracaena is derived from the romanized form of the Ancient Greek drakaina, "female dragon". The majority of the species are native to Africa, southern Asia through to northern Australia, with two species in tropical Central America. Species of Dracaena have a secondary thickening meristem in their trunk, termed Dracaenoid thickening by some authors, which is quite different from the thickening meristem found in dicotyledonous plants. This characteristic is shared with members of the Agavoideae and Xanthorrhoeoideae among other members of the Asparagales.

Taxonomic tree:

Domain:
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Magnoliophyta
Class: Liliopsida
Order:Asparagales
Family:Asparagaceae
Genus:Dracaena
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