Poolanui. Plate 19 from the book: Indigenous flowers of the Hawaiian Islands

Plate 19 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 Poolanui.

Coreopsis cosmoides, A. Gray.

The Poolanui is a spreading bushy plant, five or six feet high, with twining, interlacing branches, one plant covering from eight to ten feet of ground. It generally grows under the shade of open forest, in the mountain regions at various heights above the sea, but seldom less than two thousand feet.

In ordinary seasons, it blooms in April and May, but occasionally flowers may be found as late as the end of June or beginning of July.

The poolanui is quite a striking flower, not only on account of its size and colour, but also on account of the great number in bloom at the same time - giving the sombre forest quite a bright appearance during the spring months. It is a useful fodder plant, cattle and horses eating it with avidity, but it soon disappears if constantly eaten down.

The poolanui seems a flower that might be improved by cultivation, and would doubtless grow from seed under suitable conditions.