The brave botanist and the plant that found a friend
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High above the sea, on a cliff on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, grows a strange and remarkable plant. Its grey trunk swells at the base to store water, while a rosette of bright green leaves crowns the top. “It looks like a cabbage on a bowling pin,” says Steve Perlman, the botanist who has repeatedly risked his life to save it from extinction.
The plant is called Brighamia insignis, and it is a species in trouble. Found nowhere else in the world, it faces extinction, along with hundreds of other species. Perlman was determined not to let it disappear, as more than 100 other Hawaiian plants already had.
“It looks like a cabbage on a bowling pin.”
Hawaii is an extraordinary place. For millions of years, its species evolved in isolation, untouched by human interference. That all changed around 1,500 years ago, when the first settlers arrived.
Those early Hawaiians found a little medicine cabinet in Brighamia…
They ate the leaves raw to treat tuberculosis, or mixed crushed leaves with salt to treat infected cuts. They may even have cultivated the plant for medicinal use, as they did its relative, Brighamia rockii, on the island of Molokai.
But the arrival of people also brought trouble for the plant.
Both the early settlers and, to an even greater extent, the Europeans who arrived in 1700 disrupted the local ecology by introducing species that competed with native species. Feral goats, rats and invasive weeds all played their part. Many species suffered, but Brighamia lost a particularly important friend: the insect it relied on to pollinate its fragrant flowers.
Each flower has five petals that form a long trumpet, flaring at the mouth into a five-pointed star. The nectar lies so deep inside that only the long proboscis of one particular moth could reach it.
Perlman believes this natural pollinator is a moth called Tinostoma smaragditis, the fabulous green sphinx of Kauai. It is so rare that, until 1998, it was thought to be extinct: no one had seen it for decades. Without pollination by this insect, the plant cannot produce seeds, leaving no new generations to replace the plants that die each year. “That’s when I started doing the pollination,” says Perlman.
He began his efforts to save the species in the 1970s. But its rarity called for extraordinary measures. To find Brighamia insignis, Perlman first had to approach by sea. Battling rough waves in a red canoe, he reached some of the most inaccessible stretches of the rugged coastline. And that was only the beginning.
He then had to climb the towering, sheer cliffs without even being able to use a rope. Footage of these climbs is breathtaking: large chunks of rock break away as he tries to find a secure hold. “It was dangerous and exciting,” he says, “but that’s where the plants were.”
Only when he reached the clifftop, some 900 metres up, could he secure himself to a rope. Now the scientific work could begin. Perlman abseiled down the cliff, pushing off the rock face as he searched for Brighamia plants. Patiently, he transferred pollen by hand from one plant to another to ensure they would produce seeds. Months later, he would return to collect those seeds so that new plants could be grown under controlled conditions.
That’s where the plants were.
Select steps 1–2–3 to follow the rescue.
An illustrated story · not a map or a drawing to scale.
1 · Reaching the plants
Perlman approached in a red canoe, then climbed the remote cliffs to reach the plants.
2 · Pollinating by hand
He transferred pollen by hand from plant to plant so they could produce seeds.
3 · Collecting the seeds
Months later, he returned to collect the seeds so that new plants could be grown under controlled conditions.
Back in the 1970s, when Perlman first began working with Brighamia, a few hundred plants remained on Kauai. Then two hurricanes swept across the island, devastating the population. “As far as we know, there’s only one plant left on Kauai,” says Perlman. The species has already disappeared from Ni’ihau, where it once thrived.
But thanks to Perlman’s courage and dedication, hundreds of Brighamia plants are now grown in cultivation, particularly in Europe, where they have become popular houseplants. Perlman and his colleagues at Hawaii’s Plant Extinction Prevention Program have also planted hundreds back in the wild.
“We’re not going to lose these species,” says Perlman. Saving Brighamia insignis greatly improved his climbing skills, which in turn helped him rescue other plants threatened with extinction. Yet of all the plants he has worked with in his 44 years as a botanist, Brighamia insignis and its relative Brighamia rockii remain his favourites.
“I love working with them on the cliffs where they grow,” he says. “I like their shape, their thick, swollen bases and their large, fragrant flowers. They grow in incredible places in Hawaii, and it’s thrilling to have helped save them from extinction.”
For Perlman, this is personal. He has witnessed the extinction of 20 species, an experience he has compared to losing a member of his family. At the heart of his efforts to save Brighamia is a simple conviction: it exists, and it deserves to go on existing.
So this curious plant may have lost its natural pollinator, but at least it has found a good new friend.