Cyanea (plant)

Cyanea
Cyanea lobata
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Asterales
Family: Campanulaceae
Subfamily: Lobelioideae
Genus: Cyanea
Gaudich.
Species

about 78, see text

Synonyms

Kittelia
Rollandia

Cyanea is a genus of flowering plants in the family Campanulaceae. These Hawaiian lobelioids are endemic to Hawaii. They grow in moist and wet forest habitat.[1] Its name in Hawaiian is hāhā.[2]

Over 90% of Cyanea species are found only on one island in the Hawaiian chain.[3]

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.[1][3] 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 were made extinct from the islands relatively recently, within the last 1600 years.[4]

Cyanea flowers are pollinated by birds[3] such as the Hawaiian honeycreepers,[4] and the seeds are dispersed by birds that take the fruits.[3]

There are about 78 species in the genus.[5]

Species include:[6][7]

Cyanea duvalliorum

References

Wikispecies has information related to: Cyanea
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cyanea.
  1. 1 2 Lammers, T. G. (2004). Five new species of the endemic Hawaiian genus Cyanea (Campanulaceae: Lobelioideae). Novon 14(1) 84-101.
  2. "Hawaiian Native Plant Genera - Campanulaceae: Cyanea". Dr. Gerald Carr, University of Hawaiʻi. Retrieved September 20, 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Givnish, T. J., et al. (2009). Origin, adaptive radiation and diversification of the Hawaiian lobeliads (Asterales: Campanulaceae). Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 276(1656), 407-16.
  4. 1 2 Givnish, T. J., et al. (1994). Thorn-like prickles and heterophylly in Cyanea: adaptations to extinct avian browsers on Hawaii? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 91(7), 2810-14.
  5. 1 2 Oppenheimer, H. and D. H. Lorence. (2012). A new species of Cyanea (Campanulaceae, Lobelioideae) from Maui, Hawaiian Islands. PhytoKeys (13), 15-23.
  6. GRIN Species Records of Cyanea. Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN).
  7. Cyanea. Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS).
  8. http://nativeplants.hawaii.edu/plant/view/Cyanea_angustifolia#environmentalinformation
  9. http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=CYAN6
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