ʻŌhiʻa Love
Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death (ROD) has killed hundreds of thousands of ʻōhiʻa trees on Hawaiʻi Island, affecting over 135,000 acres. This fungal disease has no known treatment and has the potential to kill ʻōhiʻa trees statewide.
ʻŌhiʻa trees are the keystone species of our native forests, covering nearly a million acres. Native birds, insects, and snails live in them and feed on them, while their canopy protects other native plants, creating the watershed that feeds our streams and recharges our water supply. This tree also has immense cultural significance, symbolizing strength, beauty, and sanctity.
ʻŌhiʻa Love: Preserving Seeds for the Future
Through the Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death Seed Banking Initiative, the Hawaii Island Seed Bank and other members of the Hawaiʻi Seed Bank Partnership are working to collect and preserve ʻōhiʻa seeds from all islands during the ROD crisis and store them for future forest restoration. This project, called ʻŌhiʻa Love, was initiated by the Lyon Arboretum Seed Lab and funded by the Hawaii Tourism Authority. The Lyon Arboretum Seed Lab has been saving ʻōhiʻa seed for over 20 years, with seeds that germinated at 18 years without losing viability. Each island is working to collect seed from their ʻōhiʻa trees to save this precious resource for the future.
How You Can Help
There are three ways to support ʻŌhiʻa Love: sustaining existing seed collections, funding new collections from wild trees, or donating to the ʻŌhiʻa Love General Fund.
Sustain Existing Collections (Recurring Donations)
For $50 or less per year, you can ensure an ʻōhiʻa tree lives on through its keiki. Your sustained donation will secure thousands of seeds collected from an ʻōhiʻa tree, then stored at the Hawaiʻi Island Seed Bank and in backup storage at another Hawaiʻi Seed Bank Partnership facility.
Fund New Wild Collections (One-Time Donations)
With a one-time gift of $175 per tree, you can enable the Hawaiʻi Island Seed Bank to make a new seed collection from wild ʻōhiʻa trees in the forests of Hawaiʻi, helping us contribute to statewide goals of banking seeds from 10,000 trees of each type of ʻōhiʻa. Visit laukahi.org/ohia to learn more.
