Noni. Plate 40 from the book: Indigenous flowers of the Hawaiian Islands

Plate 40 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 Noni.

Morinda citrifolia, Linn.

The Noni, although usually a shrub not exceeding ten or twelve feet in height, sometimes attains the dimensions of a tree, and is found - under favourable circumstances - from twenty to thirty feet high. It is wonderfully prolific and hardy, being generally loaded with fruit and leaves at all seasons of the year, irrespective of rain or sunshine.

The fruit and foliage are much more attractive than the flowers, which are small and dull in colour. But it is only in appearance that the fruit is inviting, being acrid to the taste, yet, in times of scarcity, the natives not only eat it in a raw state, but by cooking make it, not exactly nice, but much less disagreeable.

The tree begins branching from the ground, and presents a mass of large bright green leaves intermingled with the fruit in all stages of growth. The inflorescence of the noni is peculiar, as will be noticed in the plate. From three to six of the small flowers appear, lasting for a day or two, and gradually dropping off as the fruit increases in size. Meanwhile, another embryo fruit appears nearer the end of the branch, and so the wonderful process goes on, month after month, year after year, seemingly ad infinitum.