All six of these trees stand on one short loop trail in a single state park on the Hamakua coast, part of one of the last old growth native forest stands on the Big Island. Hawaii protects individual trees by law, and the register singles out a koa 3.66 metres round, an oversized hame, two ohi'a lehua holding the canopy, and two kopiko 'ula of very different sizes. None carry a recorded age.
0 of 6 visited in Hawaii
1
The Kalopa Koa
Koa (Acacia koa) · Kalopa State Recreation Area
Almost none of Hawaii's native lowland forest is still standing. This koa grows in about a hundred acres of it that survived, one of the last old growth stands of native Hawaiian rainforest on the Big Island.
Koa grows nowhere else on earth. Hawaiians cut it for ocean-going canoes and surfboards, furniture makers have wanted it ever since, and that is a fair part of why so little old koa survives anywhere. This one carries a trunk 3.66 metres round, it is listed by name in the state's register of exceptional trees, and it was rated in good health when surveyors last looked at it.
It stands on the 0.7 mile nature trail that loops out from the park office. The Hamakua coast below spent a century under sugar cane and is now pasture and timber plantation. This pocket kept its own species instead, roughly twenty-five natives along the trail, several of them present as a single individual.
Nobody has dated it. The girth is on the record and the years are not, so if you know of a ring count or a survey, tell us and it goes on the page.
The park is free and open from seven in the morning until eight at night. The loop takes half an hour if you walk it without stopping, which you will not.
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2
The Kalopa Hame
Hame (Antidesma platyphyllum) · Kalopa State Recreation Area
Hame is a small tree. The botanical references give it four to ten metres, fifteen at the very outside, and it spends its whole life under somebody else's canopy. This one has a trunk 2.16 metres round, which is wider than your arms will reach and which no field guide would predict.
That is the likeliest reason Hawaii singled it out for protection under its exceptional tree law, which lists individual trees rather than whole habitats. Antidesma platyphyllum grows nowhere but these islands, and nobody travels to see one. It is a filler species, the kind of plant that quietly occupies the middle storey of a native rainforest under the koa and the ohi'a.
The Kalopa nature trail passes roughly twenty-five native species in 0.7 miles, several of them present as a single individual, and this hame is very likely one of those singles. That is the case for walking the loop slowly. A hame of this size is not something you come across on an ordinary hillside, because ordinary hillsides on this coast were cleared long ago.
Only the state register names this tree by itself, so the girth is their figure and we have not found a second measurement of it. Its age is unrecorded and we would rather leave the field empty than invent one. If you know of a count, tell us.
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3
The Smaller Kalopa Kopiko 'ula
Kopiko 'ula (Psychotria hawaiiensis) · Kalopa State Recreation Area
This tree stands about 13 metres, which is as tall as its species has ever been documented to grow, and it does it on a trunk 82 centimetres round. You can put both arms around it comfortably.
Kopiko 'ula belongs to the coffee family and grows only in Hawaii, usually as a slim understory tree that never gets to decide how much light it receives. Height is the whole of this one's claim: the state's record puts it at 42 feet, and the species tops out at about 45.
There are two kopiko 'ula on the Kalopa nature trail and they are nothing alike. The other one, further round the same 0.7 mile loop, is over three metres round and nowhere near as tall. Between them they cover most of the range this species is capable of, which is not something you can usually see in a single afternoon.
Surveyors rated this one's condition fair rather than good, so go expecting a record holder rather than a showpiece. Its age has never been established, and the state register carries measurements without dates. If you know of a count for a Hawaiian understory tree of this size, tell us and we will add it.
The forest around it is protected native rainforest, roughly a hundred acres of it, which is why a tree of this kind survived long enough to reach its ceiling.
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4
The Larger Kalopa Kopiko 'ula
Kopiko 'ula (Psychotria hawaiiensis) · Kalopa State Recreation Area
A kopiko 'ula is a slender thing, a coffee relative that rarely clears 13 metres and almost never gets thick. This one has a trunk 3.26 metres round. We have not found a larger one recorded anywhere, and the species grows nowhere outside Hawaii.
Trees like this are what an old forest produces when nobody interferes with it for long enough. Kalopa protects roughly a hundred acres of native Hawaiian rainforest above the Hamakua coast, most of the rest of which went to cane and then to pasture, and inside that fence an understory species that normally stays modest has run to something close to a record.
The state rates its condition fair rather than good, which is worth knowing before you walk out to it: this one is a heavyweight, not a portrait. It sits on the same 0.7 mile loop as its much slimmer and much taller counterpart, and the pair of them are the best argument the trail makes for how variable a single Hawaiian species can be.
The state register is the only source that names this tree individually. The park's own trail notes describe the forest rather than its members, so the measurement rests on one authority instead of two.
Its age is blank, as it is for everything here, because Hawaii's register records trunks and does not date them. If anyone has counted the rings of a kopiko 'ula, tell us.
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5
The Larger Kalopa Ohi'a Lehua
Ohi'a Lehua (Metrosideros polymorpha) · Kalopa State Recreation Area
This is the largest tree on the loop: 4.39 metres round, about 26 metres tall, and rated in excellent health when the state last measured it. Ohi'a lehua is also the tree that colonises bare lava, the first green thing to appear on new ground on this island, and it goes on to hold the canopy over almost every wet native forest Hawaii has left.
The state parks department describes this trail as running beneath large old growth ohi'a, and this is the biggest of them on record. The species reaches roughly 30 metres in the wettest forest, so this one is near its ceiling. Ohi'a is a famously slow grower, which means a trunk 1.4 metres thick represents a great deal of time. Nobody has attached a number to it. If you know of a count, tell us and it goes on the page.
One honest note on finding it. The register entry carries the measurements and no address at all, so this tree is placed at Kalopa because its coordinates match the other five listed here and because the park's own account of its canopy fits what is recorded. The pin is park-level in any case. Walk the 0.7 mile loop, look up, and take the crown that everything else on the trail is standing under.
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6
The Smaller Kalopa Ohi'a Lehua
Ohi'a Lehua (Metrosideros polymorpha) · Kalopa State Recreation Area
Pick a lehua blossom, the saying goes, and it will rain before you get home, because the flower and the tree that carries it were lovers the volcano goddess parted. The tree is the ohi'a. The red brush of a flower is the lehua.
This is the second of the two large ohi'a on the Kalopa loop: 3.84 metres round, about 22 metres tall, in excellent condition by the state's reckoning, and a little smaller than its neighbour in every direction. Between them they are the reason the trail looks the way it does. Ohi'a builds the canopy of Hawaiian wet forest and its flowers are the main food of the native honeycreepers, so an old stand of it is not only a roof, it is what keeps birds in the air above you.
Kalopa holds about a hundred acres of that forest and roughly twenty-five native species along 0.7 miles of path, several of them down to a single plant.
This tree's register entry, like its neighbour's, gives measurements and no address, so it sits here on coordinates that match the rest of the park's listed trees. Its age is unrecorded, as it is for all six. Ohi'a thickens slowly and this trunk has plainly had time, but nobody has counted, and if you have, we will take the correction.
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