''Cyanea recta'' is a rare species of flowering plant in the bellflower family known by the common names upright cyanea and Kealia cyanea. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

, where it is known only from the island of

Kauai Kauai, () anglicized as Kauai ( ), is geologically the second-oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands (after Niʻihau). With an area of 562.3 square miles (1,456.4 km2), it is the fourth-largest of these islands and the 21st largest island ...

.USFWS
''Cyanea recta''.
The Nature Conservancy. It is a federally listed threatened species of the United States. Like other '' Cyanea'' it is known as ''haha'' in Hawaiian.USFWS Species Profile: Listed Plants
/ref> A 1998 survey estimated up to 1500 individuals remaining in seven populations. These are in a few locations on Kauai, including the Makaleha Mountains. By 2008 one population apparently contained "several thousand" plants.USFWS
''Cyanea recta'' Five-year Review.
August 2010. This Hawaiian lobelioid is a

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

growing up to 1.5 meters tall. The

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

bears purple-striped white or solid purple flowers. It grows in wet forest habitat in the understory of ''

ʻōhiʻa lehua ''Metrosideros polymorpha'', the ''ōhia lehua'', is a species of flowering evergreen tree in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae, that is endemic to the six largest islands of Hawaii. It is a highly variable tree, being tall in favorable situations ...

'' (''Metrosideros polymorpha''). The

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

is threatened with degradation and destruction by a number of forces, especially feral pigs and exotic plant species such as fireweed and Koster's curse (''Clidemia hirta'').

References

External links

USDA Plants Profile
recta Endemic flora of Hawaii Biota of Kauai {{Campanulaceae-stub