Hau. Plate 1 from the book: Indigenous flowers of the Hawaiian Islands

Plate 1 of 44 from Isabella Sinclair's Indigenous flowers of the Hawaiian Islands (1885). The coloured illustration is accompanied by the following text describing the plant:

The Hau.

Hibiscus tiliaceus, Linn.

The hau is found more or less in all parts of the islands from the sea-coast to an elevation of about one thousand feet. When growing singly it attains a considerable size; but where found in groves, it inclines to spread in a dense thicket not over twenty feet high. When the hau grows as a tree, it attains a height of thirty or forty feet, with a short crooked trunk two or three feet in diameter at the base. The tree is a mass of branches and foliage, which renders it an attractive object at all seasons, but especially so in spring and summer, when brilliant with its large handsome, yellow flowers.

The flowers only last one day, opening at sunrise and closing at sunset, and there are no other trees in the islands, and probably few in the world, which produce such a vast number of blossoms in a single season.

The hau is easily grown by simply planting a branch; and, although it matures seed, it is usually propagated by cuttings.

The wood is useful for ox-yokes and other purposes, being light and tough. The inner bark was formerly much used by the natives for making ropes, net-bags, kapa (native cloth), and various other articles. The tree is not peculiar to these islands, being found in most of the Pacific Islands within the tropics. In Tahiti its native name is "purau."