atoll research bulletin no. 392 the flora of - Smithsonian Institution ...

longitudinal bands; flowers, small, starry-white, 6-parted, borne in loose clusters on
flower stems, up to 1.5 m long, and tipped with leafy offshoots or plantlets; fruit, a
leathery 3-angled capsule with flat seeds. ornamental pot plant. 3(58690), 6.
Cordyline fruticosa (L.) A. Chev. "cordyline" , " ti-plant" (Hawaii)
te rauti (K) ; ti (T)
syns. Convallaria. fruticosa L.; Cordyline terminalis (L.) Kunth; Taetsia fruticosa
(L.) Merr.; T. terminalis (L.) W. F. Wight
Recent introduction. Trop. Asia or Australasia? Occasional. Woody erect shrub
or tree-like branched or unbranched perennial, up to 2 m or taller; leaves, up to 60 cm
long and 15 cm wide, lanceolate or oblong, smooth, tough, shiny dark-green to rust or
red, borne in rosettes clustered in spirals near the tips of the branches; petioles, 5 to 15
cm long; flowers, numerous, white to lilac-tinted, borne on large branching terminal
panicles, about 30 cm long; fruit, globose, about 5 mm in diameter, thinly fleshy, red,
purplish, or yellowish; seeds,, obovoid, black, glossy; some cultivars with a large edible
tuberous root. Planted ornamental and pot plant. Very important ceremonial and magico-
religious plant, a traditionally important supplementary food plant and famine food, and
important decorative plant, with numerous other cultural uses in Melanesia and Polyn-
esia, where numerous named cultivars and hybrids exist. The large sweet white tubers of
some cultivars are baked for days in earthen ovens to be consumed as food, sweets or
confectionery, or, in Hawaii, made into an alcoholic beverage known as okolehao; leaves
important for parcelling food and dancing skirts and body ornamentation. Apparently a
recent introduction into Nauru with no reported non-ornamental local uses. 3(58676), 5,
6(186), 7.
Crinum asiaticum L. "spider lily", "crinum lily", "grand crinum"
dagiebu, dagibu (N); te kiebu (K); tapua, talotalo (T)
syns. C. peduncula.tum R. Br. ; C. procerum Bak.
Recent introduction. Trop. Asia. Occasional. Perennial erect bulbous herb, up to
1.5 m or taller; leaves, up to 1.5 m long and 20 cm wide, many, arching, fleshy, strap-
shaped, green to yellow, rising from a whitish stalk; inflorescence, an umbel-like
flowerhead bearing 10 or more spider-like, 6-parted, fragrant, white flowers, with
flowering tubes, up to 10 cm long, white filaments and purplish styles, borne on a
flattened fleshy flowering stem (scape); fruit, subglobose, beaked, 1- to 2-seeded; seeds,
large, fleshy. Planted ornamental. Flowers used in garlands; roots crushed for the
treatment of filariasis. 3, 5(122), 6(216), 7.