Coastal and mountain naupaka grow apart, yet remain joined by moʻolelo
Story by Savannah Dagupion
Photographs: Don White/iStock and HTA/Tor Johnson
ALONG MAUI’S COASTS, naupaka kahakai (naupaka by the seashore) sprawls over sand and rocky shoreline at Kāʻanapali Beach, in Haleakalā National Park’s Kīpahulu District and across Waiheʻe Coastal Dunes and Wetlands Refuge. The hardy shrub can grow about 3 feet tall and 10 feet across, with thick, waxy leaves, pale berries and white flowers that look as if they’ve been torn neatly in half.
Higher in the mountains grow several species known collectively as naupaka kuahiwi (mountain naupaka). They bear dark berries and similarly distinctive half-flowers. Unlike indigenous naupaka kahakai, whose buoyant fruit can float in the ocean for months and help the plant spread across tropical coastlines, Hawaiʻi’s mountain naupaka species are endemic, found nowhere else in the world.
Naupaka has practical uses in traditional Hawaiian life. The dark fruits of naupaka kuahiwi produce a purplish-black dye, while the taproot bark of naupaka kahakai, mixed with salt, can be applied to pains and sores. The coastal plant’s white berries were occasionally eaten during famine, and its thick leaves can be rubbed inside diving masks to help prevent fogging.
Seen face-on, each bloom resembles a small fan. Its petals spread from one side of the center, leaving the other open, as if a matching fan had been pulled away. In Hawaiian moʻolelo (stories), that open space becomes the distance between two lovers: one in the mountains, one by the ocean.
The details vary. In some tellings, a Princess Naupaka falls in love with a fisherman named Kauʻi. In others, they’re simply known as a mountain girl and fisherman. Their love was forbidden, either by social rank or by Pele’s jealousy, and they were driven apart. Before parting, the woman tears a flower in two and gives one half to her beloved. One retreats to the mountains while the other retreats to the sea.
The flower itself, though, isn’t half a flower at all. All five petals are there, opening to the same side. Placed together, a coastal bloom and a mountain bloom are said to reunite the lovers – or simply reflect the enduring bond between mauka (toward the mountains) and makai (toward the ocean).
