Plant Name

Scientific Name: Cibotium spp.

Common Names: Hapu'u, Hawaiian Tree Fern, Manfern

Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial, Evergreen

Growth Habit: Tree, Herb/Forb, Fern

Hawaii Native Status: Native (endemic)

Flower Color: Non-flowering

Height: Up to 23 feet (7 m) tall or more, but usually less

Description: The fronds are at the top of an unbranched trunk. The fronds are very large, feathery, triangle-shaped, and tripinnate with green leaflets. The undersides of the fertile fronds have a row of spore cups along both leaflet margins. The fiddleheads (coiled young fronds) and the base of the leaf stalks are covered in fine rust-colored, golden, or blackish hair. The dead fronds are bent downward along the trunk.

Hawaiian Tree Ferns grow in the understory of wet to mesic (moderately wet) native forests at middle to upper elevations.

The similar non-native Australian Tree Fern (Cyathea cooperi) has blade-like scales instead of fine hair.

Classification

Kingdom: Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom: Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Division: Pteridophyta – Ferns
Class: Filicopsida
Order: Polypodiales
Family: Dicksoniaceae – Tree Fern family
Genus: Cibotium Kaulf. – manfern