Purple Cyanea

Description

Cyanea is a genus of flowering plants in the family Campanulaceae. The name Cyanea in Hawaiian is h?h?. These Hawaiian lobelioids are endemic to Hawaii with over 90% of Cyanea species are found only on one island in the Hawaiian chain. They grow in moist and wet forest habitat and are largely pollinated by birds such as the Hawaiian honeycreepers, and the seeds are dispersed by birds that take the fruits. Most Cyanea are trees with few branches or none. The inflorescence is a raceme of 4 to 45 flowers which grows from the leaf axils. The fruit is a fleshy berry. There have been several theories regarding the evolution of large prickles on plants endemic to islands that lack any mammalian or reptilian herbivores. One such theory suggests that the prickles are a defense against herbivory by the moa-nalo, a few taxa of flightless ducks that went extinct on the islands within the last 1600 years.