Flower is a very beautiful creation of God. Without it nature’s beauty is nothing. Flowers are not just species like other but they are divine and in our culture every flower has its own significance and has gained importance.
We have seen various types of flowers. Usually flowers bloom throughout the year, some flowers bloom as per season. And some flowers bloom once in a year or once in 12years. But there is flower that blooms once in 7 years and lasts for only seven days.
Silversword, also known as ‘The Flower of Patience’, is a federally listed endangered species endemic to island of Haweii. It is the “crown jewel” of the volcanic mountain Mauna Kea, from which it derives its English name.
The Mauna Kea silversword was once common on the volcano, and extraordinary conservation efforts are being made to preserve the species. The Mauna Kea silversword is a member of the silversword alliance, a group of approximately 50 species in three genera, all endemic to the Hawaiian islands. Their diverse morphologies belie extremely close genetic kinship and suggest extremely rapid evolution from a single precursor species. The silversword alliance is considered the most dramatic example of adaptive radiation among plants in Hawaii, illustrating the role of isolation and distinctive ecological conditions in promoting evolution.
The Mauna Kea silversword is an erect, single-stemmed and monocarpic or rarely branched and polycarpic basally woody herb, producing a globe-shaped cluster of thick, spirally arranged, sword-shaped silvery-green floccose-sericeous, linear-ligulate to linear-lanceolate leaves growing in a rosette. The epigeal or nearly epigeal rosette may become 0.6 m or more in diameter with individual leaves up to 0.3 m long and is usually less than 1.3 cm wide.
The leaves are completely covered with a dense layer of long silvery hairs. The leaves of all silverswords have an unusual and important ability to store water as a gel in intracellular spaces where other plant leaves contain air. The flowering stalk, which appears a few weeks before flowering, is narrow, but may reach nearly 3 m in height. It is composed of numerous, very sticky stalklets bearing up to 600 flowering heads about 2.5 cm in diameter, each containing 500 individual flowers. Each head has about a dozen pink to maroon petal-like ray flowers around its periphery.
The Mauna Kea Silversword has a lifespan of between 20 to 90 years, but is known to only flower once in its lifespan. Oftentimes at a rate of about once every seven years, although this varies greatly from flower-to-flower.
It can be found growing on the dormant volcanic mountain Mauna Kea at elevations above 2,600 meters (8,500 feet), one of the most stunning locations on the Big Island. The flower may also be found on one of Earth’s most active volcanoes, Mauna Loa, and is a nationally recognised symbol of Hawaii’s tropical dreamscape.
The Mauna Kea silversword is a highly specialised plant that is adapted to the harsh, alpine conditions of the upper slopes of Mauna Kea, which have low soil nutrients, high winds, and extreme temperature fluctuations.
Each individual plant flowers only once in its lifetime, at the age of 10-50 years, and dies shortly after (this type of life cycle is termed monocarpic). During this stage, each rosette sends up a monstrous raceme, reaching a height of up to 3 meters and containing up to 600 maroon, nodding flower heads.
The flower had been declining for centuries, victims of feral goats and tourists eager to uproot living souvenirs. Even before the silversword was declared a federally threatened species in 1992, conservationists had fenced the barren slopes of their habitat, rid the area of goats, and planted silversword seeds. The efforts seemed to be working until the 1990s, after which the Maui species declined by 60%. Plants that sit farther down the volcano have suffered the most, even though they live in wetter conditions.
The Mauna Kea Silversword is highly vulnerable to human disturbance and habitat destruction, and its populations have declined due to overgrazing by feral sheep and goats, as well as habitat destruction by development and recreational activities.