american samoa - University of Hawaii at Manoa

nu pucijicuJ; an Eurya? [Eurya pickeringii], a shrub
with inconspicuous flowers; a Weinmunnia
[Wcinmunniu affinis]; a peculiar species of Genio-
sloma [Geniostoma rupestre]; a Myrica-like Myrsine
[Rapunea myricifolia]; the Grossostylis
[Crosso.stylis hrJ'ora], having much of the aspect of
I'hiladelphus; and a large flowered Cyrtandra
[Cyrtandra geminata]: also peculiar epidendric
Orchidaceae; the resemblance to the Tahitian
mountain-ridges being further kept up by a few beds
of Glcichenia [Dicranopteris linearis], the only ones
I met with on the Samoan Islands."
The first known ecological research in Samoa
was done on wetlands of American Samoa (Whistler
1976), but the only relevant wetland noted is the one
at Vatia, which lies outside, but adjacent to, the
park. Another study was carried out on the wetlands
of 'l'utuila (Uiosystems Analysis lnc. 1992), which
also nicntioned the Vatia marsh.
The most comprehensive study to date of the
vegetation of the island was carried out during a
survey of the wildlife and vegetation of American
Samoa (Amerson et al. 1982). The botanical portion
of that study (Whistler 1980) included a description
of the vegetation of Tutuila and the other islands of
American Samoa. Although a number of study plots
were established at that time, only one is within the
park boundaries. Because the terminology in that
study is now somewhat out of date, the vegetation
units recognized in the present report are based on
more recent and more comprehensive studies
(Whistler 1992a).
A more recent study of the vegetation was carried
out by the U. S. Forest Service (Cole et al. 1988) in
1986, but the work was oriented towards making
vegetation maps from aerial photographs and
ground truthing the results. One further ecological
study was carried out by the author on the coastal
vegetation, which included areas within the park,
but this report has not been published yet by the Sea
Grant program of the University of Hawai'i.
11. METHODOLOGY
A detailed checklist of the flora of Tutuila was
prepared before the field work began; it was
extracted from an unpublished checklist of the flora
of Samoa prepared by the author. This checklist is
based on the work of the U.S. Exploring Expedition
(Pickering 1876), the flora of Reinecke (1896,
l898), the publications of Rechinger (1 907-1 91 5),
the flora of Setchell (1924), and the floristic work of
Christophersen (1935, 1938). The only recent and
up-to-date published checklist of the flora of the
island is found in The vegetation of Eastern Samoa
(Whistler 1980). In addition to these published
works, specimens from the Kew Garden and Bishop
Museums were extensively searched for specimens
collected from the island. The collections of the
author made on the island from 1972 to the present
were added to this; these are in his personal
collection, with duplicates scattered at various
herbaria. The flora comprises Appendix A at the
end of this report.
The actual field work for this project was carried
out on the island from 27 May to 16 June 1992, with
a follow-up period from 17 December 1992 to 5
January 1993. The field team consisted of the
author with several other people, principally Natasha
Bartley whose help was graciously provided by the
Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources (for
the May to June field work). During the field work
the most interesting places were selected from aerial
photographs and from 1 :200 topographic maps
supplied by the Pago Pago office of the National
Park Service. Further sites were visited based on
field observations and information supplied by
people familiar with the park area, particularly Rory
West of Vatia village, who served as guide on
several of the trips.
Most of the field study was concentrated in the
eastern half of the park, because the vegetation there
is in much better condition than in the western half.
This is probably due partly to the spate of recent
hurricanes that seem to have taken a greater toll in
the western half, but also partly to disturbance
caused by recent agriculture adjacent and north of
the Alava Ridge road in the western half and by the
road itself.
Field trips were made to most of the places
named on Fig. 2. The coastline of the park from
Afono to Tafeu Cove was viewed by boat during an
aborted trip to Tafeu Cove (rough seas precluded a
landing).
Eleven sites (plus one on Ofu) were selected
during the field work for vegetation sampling; at
these sites approximately 100 trees picked at random