The kauna'oa kahakai vine was a gift the goddess Pele left on the beaches of the Hawaiian islands. The goddess began her epic voyage from Kukulu-o-Kahiki to the Hawaiian archipelago to get away from her enraged sister, Namaka-o-Kaha'i, the sea goddess. On a small islet near Nihoa, she placed a lei made of kauna'oa on the beach. This lei was the first of many lei recorded in the stories about Pele and her youngest sister Hi'iaka. (Hi'iaka also was moved to leave a lei made of lehua blossoms on the islet , and because of this the islet was given the name "Lehua Island."
Apparently, the plant spread throughout the islands. Much later, after Pele had established her home on the Big Island, Hi'iaka undertook a quest to Kauai and back for the goddess. On her return voyage, while they were at Pu'uloa on O'ahu, Hi'iaka asked her traveling companions to make a lei kauna'oa.
Kauna'oa is an indigenous green to yellow-orange parasite from the dodder family whose slender stems grow like a web over shrubs and fields, along roadsides and above the high water mark on the leeward beaches.
It is not particular about what host it chooses. It attaches itself to whatever plant happens to be around and sometimes kills its host. Its stems have specialized roots called "haustoria," which penetrate into host tissues to absorb nutrients. It is also known as orange dodder or beach orphan vine.
Its scientific name, Cuscuta sandwichiana, means "a tangle of hair from the Sandwich Islands." The word "cuscuta" is derived from the Arabic "kuskut," which means "a tangled twist of hair." In the old literature it is called "the motherless plant" because of its parasitic nature.
The plant's tiny yellowish flowers are so small they are barely visible. They cluster at the leaf scale axils. The leaves are little more than scales on the plants. Tiny round green fruits develop from the flowers. Often these green fruits are surrounded by the withered corolla from the flower. The fruits are eaten and dispersed by birds.
The miniscule dark, reddish-brown seeds germinate and root in the soil first, and then the plant takes on its parasitic lifestyle. The juvenile plants have a small root system that rapidly degenerates. By the time they are mature, the plants are not connected to the ground at all.
The old Hawaiians wore kauna'oa lei when visiting the seashore, just as they made lei from certain seaweeds. This distinctive lei is often chosen by modern hula dancers to wear during their performances. To make the lei, the stringy, yellowish-orange vines are gathered and soaked in water. They are then twisted and sometimes braided together to make an open-ended, horseshoe-style lei. Binding thread is not necessary to hold the stems together. Because of its parasitic nature, the kauna'oa binds itself if the lei is allowed to stand a few hours before it is worn.
In ancient times kauna'oa was also used as a medicine. It was given to women after childbirth and to treat chest colds.
Kauna'oa is found on all of the main islands in Hawaii except Kaho'olawe and Kaua'i, from sea level to 900-feet elevation. In the legends and old songs, the island of Lana'i was noted for its kauna'oa. As a result, lei kauna'oa was chosen as the official lei for that island in modern times.
One of the most fascinating things about Maui is the diversity of climates and physical environments that make up our island home. If you're tired of the weather in one part of the island, we tell each other, relief can be found just by driving for an hour or two until you get to another part.
The island has been divided into numerous ecosystems by scientists who like to categorize such things. An ecosystem is defined as "a community of organisms interacting with its physical environment." About 150 of these ecological communities have been identified. They include aquatic ecosystems that include waterways, lakes, ponds and pools; subterranean ecosystems that go underground and terrestrial ecosystems that are described by their elevation, how much moisture they receive and the kinds of plants and animals that live in the area.
Of course, in the past 1,500 years or so of human habitation, there have been many changes to the naturally occurring ecosystems that existed before people came to the island. Humans change things. They build homes, construct roads and install all of the other amenities of civilization. They bring in many useful plants and animals, and generally make things comfortable for themselves and for their own favored plants and animals. They use the available resources of the land.
Wet valley bottoms and the moist slopes of mountains become prime sites for agriculture and, later, preferred living areas. Forests get logged. Dry coasts are transformed into the favorite gathering places for visitors and others for whom "life is a beach." From the tops of the mountains, down to the sea, intrusions of people and alien animals and plants have taken a toll on the native plants and animals and continue to change the landscape and affect the native ecosystems in many ways. Efforts are being made to preserve what is left of the natural ecosystems, but it seems to be a losing battle.
The coastal areas lie from 0 to 100 feet elevation, along the seashores of all the islands. (The key environmental factor is the reach of sea spray.) All other lowland areas are from 0 to 3,000 feet. The areas between 3,000 to 6,000 feet are called montane, while those at 6,000 to 9,000 feet are subalpine. Everything over 9,000 feet in elevation is called alpine.
For each of the five elevation zone, three general moisture categories are recognized, based on prevailing soil moisture due to rainfall, fog, cloud drip, soil drainage, proximity to groundwater and exposure to wind and sun.
Dry communities get less than 50 inches of annual rainfall. Mesic (moist) areas get 50 to 100 inches of annual rainfall and wet areas get more than 100 inches.
The third level of ecosystem classification involves the kind of plants an area sustains. Forests and woodlands are dominated by trees. A forest canopy is dense, with 60 to 100 percent cover, while a woodlands canopy is more open. Shrublands are covered with shrubs; grasslands, by grasses and sedges; and herblands, by small, non-woody plants. Meanwhile, deserts are defined as areas that get less than 20 inches of annual rainfall and don't have many plants.
The summit of Haleakala, above the 9,000 feet elevation, is considered an alpine desert. The vegetation there is sparse, with some shrubs and a few mosses, lichens and grasses. Very few people visited or lived in these mountains during the early days. There is an adze rock quarry in the park that was probably an important resource. Now, of course, the summit is a tourist attraction as well as a haven for scientific research of various sorts.
The subalpine forests, woodland and shrubland occur above 6,000 feet elevation. They are relatively dry with an annual precipitation of between 20 to 50 inches. There is a large difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures and sometimes there is frost. Some seabirds which nested in the subalpine areas were hunted by Hawaiians for food. Rock shelters, habitation caves, heiau and sections of cross-island trails are still extant.
Before human settlement, the montane dry and mesic forests and woodland occurred mostly on the leeward slopes as a transitional zone between subalpine forest and shrubland and wet forest or lowland dry vegetation. The annual rainfall there is less than 100 inches. Usually summers are very dry and the climate is temperate. These forests at one time were the traditional resource for the koa trees used for canoe construction, plants for medicinal practices as well as bird feathers for featherwork.
The wet forest and woodland occurred on the windward slopes of East Maui and used to extend from sea level to the 6,000 feet elevation. They also were in the upper reaches of the West Maui Mountains, around Mount Eke. Annual rainfall in these areas is between 80 inches and less than 400 inches. Bogs are a distinct possibility, since much of the area has no regular dry periods. Temperatures are warm at the low elevations and cool in montane areas. The area was the traditional realm of the Hawaiian gods (wao akua) and not for casual human visitation.
Hawaiians believed that the forest attracted water to the land. An old proverb says, "Hahai no ka ua I ka ulula'au." (The rain follows the forest). This may be why the far uplands were little used.
The naturally occurring lowland dry and mesic forest, woodland and shrub land was distributed over the lower leeward slopes of the island and through part of Central Maui, and covered much of the eastern part of Molokai and the central part of Lanai facing Maui. The annual rainfall is from 20 to 80 inches and the climate is warm to hot with seasonal drought. These areas occur on old lava flows on Maui.
Many lowland areas were burned and cleared in Hawaiian times. Once- extensive sandalwood forests pretty much disappeared during the early 1800s. Pili grasslands, a source of thatch materials, were maintained by fire. Medicinal plants and hardwoods were gathered. Some mesic areas were converted from forest to dryland taro and sweet potato cultivation.
Lowland dry shrubland and grassland occurred in the mountain rain shadow of Maui. They also occur on western Molokai, the leeward lowlands of Kaho'olawe, the windward and leeward lowlands of Lanai. These areas are very hot and dry. The annual rainfall is less than 20 inches and seasonal. Except where springs allowed for habitation, this zone was sparsely occupied. The dry environment along Maui's leeward coast was ideal for burial and storage caves.
The lowland environments were greatly affected by all human activities. It is thought that clearing the land by burning off the trees, bushes and grasses caused the disappearance of much of the lowland insect and snail life that had evolved in the dry-forest habitat over thousands of years. Pigs, rats, lizards and dog were all new to the land. They moved into habitats that had never before known serious competition and their numbers probably increased.
As planters, the Hawaiians fire-cleared the lowlands to build home sites and grow their introduced crops. The cultivation of taro set many basic patterns of the culture: the way water was regulated, where houses came to be located, the festivals and rituals in honor of the gods, the daily eating habits of the people.
Native planters became skilled engineers. They built terraces with great stone walls that had large rocks locked lengthwise into the walls and that were linked by intricate networks of irrigation gutters. As many as three hundred kinds of taro were cultivated. Distinct varieties were developed to different conditions of weather, water and soil. Numerous kinds of sweet potatoes and gourds were also developed. And there is evidence that the natives were expert at hand pollination to increase crop yield. Streams were dammed and diverted, drying out lowland wetlands and creating new irrigated areas.
The coastal communities were along the shorelines of the islands. The leeward shores are dry, with less than 30 inches of annual rainfall while the windward shores get up to to102 inches of rainfall. Strong winds are typical.
In ancient times, the coastal areas were the most densely populated. Along the shore, shallow bays were ringed with long rock walls and stocked with fish, creating advanced forms of fish production. Hawaiian author Samuel Kamakau said, "Fishponds were things that beautified the land and a land with many fishponds was called 'fat.' "
The southern coast of Molokai was famous for its fishponds and a testament to Hawaiian's engineering skills and understanding of the complexity and interrelatedness of natural habitats. Elaborate systems designed to use the ebb and flow of tides for stocking of fish and creating a rich nutrient base to ensure rapid fish growth were developed and are used to this day in modern aquaculture projects throughout the islands.
Archaeological digs suggest that during the early period of human settlement, at least sixty species of birds, including two types of flightless ibis, eight species of flightless geese, a bird-eating hawk, an eagle, three long-legged owls, seven flightless rails and two species of crows disappeared. Each succeeding wave of immigrants had an equally devastating impact on the native animals and plants as well.
The introduction of alien species of animals and plants that either escaped domestication or were released or planted into the wild continue to have adverse effects on remnants of the native ecosystems that still exist.
However, it is also likely that because of all the human activity, new kinds of environments were created that promoted the well-being of other species that were not previously established nor as abundant. And, although the native plants and animals are losing ground, it cannot be said that the islands are any less verdant.
Combine all ingredients and mix well. Place in pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until browning of top layer occurs. Let cool and serve with or seasoned garlic bread or foccacia.
The kauna'oa kahakai vine was a gift the goddess Pele left on the beaches of the Hawaiian islands. The goddess began her epic voyage from Kukulu-o-Kahiki to the Hawaiian archipelago to get away from her enraged sister, Namaka-o-Kaha'i, the sea goddess. On a small islet near Nihoa, she placed a lei made of kauna'oa on the beach. This lei was the first of many lei recorded in the stories about Pele and her youngest sister Hi'iaka. (Hi'iaka also was moved to leave a lei made of lehua blossoms on the islet , and because of this the islet was given the name "Lehua Island."
The plant's tiny yellowish flowers are so small they are barely visible. They cluster at the leaf scale axils. The leaves are little more than scales on the plants. Tiny round green fruits develop from the flowers. Often these green fruits are surrounded by the withered corolla from the flower. The fruits are eaten and dispersed by birds. 
One of the most fascinating things about Maui is the diversity of climates and physical environments that make up our island home. If you're tired of the weather in one part of the island, we tell each other, relief can be found just by driving for an hour or two until you get to another part.
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