Plate 1 figs. a–h · 3 observations
This species has been photographed under an open licence only 3 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.
Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.
Native range 1 botanical country
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| Hawaii | HAW | PACIFIC |
Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.
Where it actually grows measured, from 52 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 14.8 °C | 19.5 °C | 21.6 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 22.2 °C | 26.9 °C | 28.0 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 716 mm | 1,279 mm | 2,977 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 91 mm | 207 mm | 583 mm |
It is not found anywhere that gets close to freezing. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 52 research-grade observations of Planchonella sandwicensis that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.
This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.
Also published as 20 synonyms
A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.
- Myrsine molokaiensis H.Lév.
- Planchonella ceresolii (Rock) St.John.
- Planchonella densiflora (Hillebr.) Pierre ex H.J.Lam
- Planchonella puulupensis Baehni & O.Deg.
- Planchonella rhynchosperma (Rock) St.John.
- Planchonella sandwicensis f. densiflora (Hillebr.) H.J.Lam
- Planchonella sandwicensis f. puulupensis (Baehni & O.Deg.) H.J.Lam
- Planchonella spathulata var. densiflora (Hillebr.) H.St.John
- Pouteria ceresolii (Rock) Fosberg
- Pouteria rhynchosperma (Rock) Fosberg
- Pouteria sandwicensis (A.Gray) Baehni & O.Deg.
- Pouteria sandwicensis f. densiflora (Hillebr.) Baehni
- Pouteria sandwicensis f. puulupensis (Baehni & O.Deg.) Baehni
- Sapota sandwicensis A.Gray
- Sideroxylon ceresolii Rock
- Sideroxylon rhynchospermum Rock
- Sideroxylon sandwicense Benth. & Hook.f. ex Drake
- Sideroxylon sandwicense var. auratum Hillebr.
- Sideroxylon spathulatum var. densiflorum Hillebr.
- Suttonia molokaiensis (H.Lév.) H.Lév.
Sourcesevery claim on this page
- World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
- iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
- USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol PLSA2. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
- Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.
We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.