Kunth [Acacia pallida Humb. & Bonpl. ex Willd.; Prosopis chilensis sensu Hawaiian botanists, non (Molina) Stuntz; P. juliflora sensu Hawaiian botanists, non (Sw.) DC; P. limensis Benth.; P. pallida f. armata Fosb.] (nat) Kiawe, algaroba, mesquite Trees 8-20 m tall, ± with slender stipular spines 0.3—1 (—1.7) cm long. Leaves with (1_)3_4 pairs of pinnae, each with 6-15 pairs of leaflets, these oblong to elliptic- oblong, 2.5-10 mm long, 1.4-4 mm wide, veins prominent on lower surface, pubescent, sometimes only along margins and on rachis, apex mucronate or weakly acuminate, base rounded, usually oblique. Flowers numerous, in cylindrical spikes 7-12 cm long; corolla yellowish green, ca. 6 mm long, inner surface of petals pilose; stamens 5-6 mm long. Pods yellowish brown, sub- cylindrical, often irregularly curved, 6-25 cm long, 1-1.5 cm wide, stipe 1.3-1.8 cm long. Seeds brown, narrowly obovoid, ca. 6.5 mm long. Native to Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador, and naturalized in Puerto Rico, Hawai‘i, and Australia; in Hawaii a dominant component of the vegetation in low elevation, dry, disturbed sites, from the vegetation line behind beaches, on raised limestone reefs, dry slopes and gulches, and in degraded dry forest, 0-610 m, on Midway Atoll and all of the main islands, but not documented from Ni‘ihau and Molokai. A single individual tree was grown from seed from the Royal Gardens in Paris, France, on the Catholic Mission grounds on Fort Street, Honolulu, by Father Bache- lot in 1828 (Rock, 1917a). Reportedly (interview with F. G. Krauss in Honolulu Star Bulletin, 17 August 1935, Kiawes waste is condemned), all trees of this species in Hawai‘i were derived from this single individual.—Plate 94. In the early part of this century many people supplemented their income by gathering kiawe pods, for which ranchers and dairymen paid 15<t per 35-pound bag. Algaroba meal was found to be a superior cattle ration and about 90,000 tons of the pods were collected annually for dairy and beef cattle as well as for horses, mules, and pigs. The seeds are very hard and pass through the digestive tract of livestock; thus they were quickly spread throughout the islands.
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