Like all hāpuʻu, the new fronds of Cibotium menziesii emerge as fiddleheads from the top of the fern. One way to distinguish hāpuʻu ʻiʻi from other hāpuʻu is the bristly hairs covering the stipe and rachis of its fronds, which can be anywhere from reddish brown (photograph courtesy of Susan Fawcett CC BY-NC 4.0) to black (photograph courtesy of jcombs15 CC BY-NC 4.0); other hāpuʻu species have soft hairs. A second feature that distinguishes C. menziesii from C. chamissoi and C. glaucum (but not C. nealiae) is the shallow sinuses (gaps) between the pinnules, seen here in closeup (photograph courtesy of Forest & Kim Starr CC BY 3.0 US). Hāpuʻu ʻiʻi has fronds that can be as much as 16 ft (5 m) long (photograph courtesy of Nikolai Braedt CC BY-NC 4.0). Header photograph of hāpuʻu ʻiʻi frond underside with ripening sori courtesy of Forest & Kim Starr CC BY 2.0.

Gone are the days (because of little fire ants and Rapid ‘Ōhi‘a Death) when you could buy living cut hāpuʻu at your local garden shop or home improvement outlet (photograph courtesy of Forest & Kim Starr CC BY 3.0). However, it's still possible to see healthy hāpuʻu ʻiʻi in public and private landscapes. Hāpuʻu ʻiʻi is the tallest of Hawai‘i's endemic tree ferns as evident here with Kim Starr standing nearby for scale (photograph courtesy of Forest & Kim Starr CC BY 2.0).

Growth Requirements

General

Accent

Container

Screening

Hāpuʻu ʻiʻi is a strikingly beautiful native tree fern that deserves to be grown more frequently in the appropriate landscape setting. Though originating at higher elevations, hapuʻu ʻiʻi can be grown as low as 300 feet, perhaps lower, under the proper conditions. [David Eickhoff, Native Plants Hawaiʻi]

Hāpuʻu is a excellent understory plant for the landscape to help control erosion. Plant in slightly acidic and well drained soil. Use in place of the highly invasive Australian tree fern (Cyathea cooperi) which escapes gardens into forests and competes with native plants. 

Apply a slow release fertilizer every six months for plants in pots. For larger potted ferns showing poor color or not producing crosiers (fiddleheads or emerging fronds), use a complete fertilizer at half the recommended strength. Do not till solid fertilizers into soil since ferns have a shallow root system. [1]

Soil must be well drained

No

Partial sun

Shade

In rainy locations such as Hilo, hāpuʻu ʻiʻi do fine in open in full sun. [David Eickhoff, Native Plants Hawaiʻi]

Tolerances

Wind

Soils

Cinder

Organic

Hāpuʻu ʻiʻi can at times be difficult to accept transplanting. This beautiful tree fern appears to be seldom seen in landscaping.* [David Eickhoff, Native Plants Hawaiʻi]

Sometimes this species (C. menziesii) was mixed in with the shipments of Cibotium glaucum available in local garden stores, which carried 4- and 6-foot hāpuʻu trunks up until recently due to Little fire ants or LFA (Wasmannia auropunctata). To avoid further the spread of LFA on to the island of Oʻahu, as of late 2013/early 2014 stores have banned importation from Hawaiʻi Island where LFA are occur in numbers. Even so, LFA have been found in some nurseries on Oʻahu.

PLEASE KOKUA AND REPORT ANY SIGHTINGS OF LFA ON OʻAHU TO THE PROPER AUTHORITIES

http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/uhmg/EastHI/little-fire-ant.asp

Gone are the days (because of the deadly fungal disease referred to as Rapid ‘Ōhi‘a Death) when you could pick up a sizable and cheap hāpuʻu trunk at your local garden shop and plop it into your landscape. (Most of these ferns were the victims/refugees of land clearings for a new homestead or road on Hawai‘i Island.) Thankfully, a few local growers have taken up the challenge of growing hāpuʻu from spores, typically a more difficult and time-consuming task than growing flowering plants from seed. Now, it's our job to encourage them (both verbally and with our dollars) to continue to grow these majestic endemic tree ferns. 

    Hāpuʻu can be used as an accent in a landscape, kept in a large container, or planted en masse for screening. While tempting, we strongly discourage you from buying or planting the highly invasive Australian tree fern (Cyathea cooperi) as a hāpuʻu substitute. This alien fern has invaded Hawai‘i's native forests where it aggressively competes with native Hawaiian plants. Fortunately, it is illegal today to sell Australian tree ferns. However, unfortunately, people are still finding ways of obtaining them. 

    Unlike Cibotium glauca (the more commonly cultivated hāpuʻu), C. chamissoi cannot endure direct sunlight without significant burning of its fronds. Therefore, place your hāpuʻu in a site with constant but light shade.  

    Cibotium chamissoi is typically the first Cibotium you see on a hike up into the mountains on O‘ahu, which means it is a bit more tolerant of heat and drought than the other hāpuʻu species. However, please remember it is still a fern with shallow roots (and no taproot) and, therefore, you should always avoid letting the soil surrounding your hāpuʻu dry out. In dry lowland locations, it's best to water your hāpuʻu every day (or every other day). In upland and/or wetter places, you can likely get by watering your hāpuʻu weekly or, maybe, even less. Always try to water your hāpuʻu from above (e.g., with sprinklers) so both the fronds and trunk (particularly the top where the new fronds are developing) get wetted every time. 

    As mentioned, Cibotium chamissoi can tolerate some drying and heat, as well as a bit of wind, but normally does better when it encounters none of these stresses. Plant your fern in organic (slightly acidic is best), cinder, or clay dominant soil, making sure the soil drains well. For containerized hāpuʻu, use a mix of sphagnum peat moss and black cinders.

    Under ideal conditions, young trunkless Cibotium chamissoi can grow rather quickly, putting out numerous moderate-sized fronds in less than a year. However, as the hāpuʻu gets older and a real trunk develops, this species (and the others) begins to grow very slowly, adding only an inch or so in height each year; maybe, because it starts diverting energy and resources into producing spores?

    Hāpuʻu in the ground don't seem to require fertilizer. For container plants, apply a balanced controlled-release fertilizer with minor elements about every six months, or use a foliar organic or inorganic fertilizer diluted to ⅓ to ½ the recommended strength every couple of months. When applying the controlled-release fertilizer, just sprinkle it on the media's surface and water it in; DO NOT till (i.e., mix) the fertilizer into the media because this can damage the fern's shallow fibrous root system.

    Cibotium chamissoi tends to form a natural skirt of dead fronds (see photographs above), one of the distinguishing characteristics of this species in its natural habitat. It's your call if you find this feature attractive or ugly. If ugly, remove the old fronds with a hand-pruner, being careful not to damage the fern's trunk or emerging fiddleheads.

Pests and Diseases

    In the 1990s, all the Cibotium species on O‘ahu were attacked by the alien two-spotted leafhopper (Sophoria orientalis; syn: Sophonia rufofascia), which greatly reduced the number of wild hāpuʻu [Palmer 2003]. Today, this leafhopper is present on all the major Hawaiian Islands from sea level to 4,000 ft (1,219 m) [Crop Knowledge Master]. We have never seen this leafhopper species on our hāpuʻu. However, if your hāpuʻu's fronds begin to turn yellow or die, inspect them closely for this pest.

    Wild hāpuʻu are regularly eaten and killed by feral pigs. Therefore, if you live near a forested area, remain vigilant of this potential threat, and, maybe, erect some type of barrier around your hāpuʻu. Also keep an eye out for termites which sometimes invade the trunk.

Special Features and Information

General

    Hāpuʻu ʻiʻi is in the genus Cibotium, which, in turn, is the sole genus in the family Cibotiaceae. Currently (2025), the genus has 11 species, distributed between Hawaiʻi (four species and a named hybrid), Southeast Asia (five species), and the cloud forests of Central America and Mexico (two species) [WikipediA;Cibotium]. 

    Feral pigs have had a devastating impact on hāpuʻu populations. The pigs regularly consume the starchy inner core of the fern, often leading to its death and creating a breeding pool for mosquitoes [Pratt 2005]. However, according to Little and Skolmen [1989], hāpuʻu are resilient plants and can withstand damage by cattle or uprooting by feral pigs so long as the growing tip harboring the fiddlehead(s) isn't destroyed. 

    The pulu, or wool, found on hāpuʻu is used by Hawaiian honeycreepers to line their nests [Pratt 2005]. 

    A natural hybrid, Cibotium chamissoi x C. menziesii, named C. x heleniae after fern expert Daniel Palmer's wife, Helen, has intermediate characteristics between the two parent species. On O‘ahu, this hybrid occurs on most leeward ridges and the bases of windward cliffs in the Koʻolau mountain range, and on Mauna Kaʻala in the Waiʻanae mountain range. It is likely also present on other Islands where the two species coexist [Palmer 2003].

    ʻŌhiʻa lehua (Metrosideros polymorpha) seedlings are frequently seen growing in the moist debris collected on the top of hāpuʻu. This observation was, in ancient times, the origin of the belief that hāpuʻu were the parents of ʻōhiʻa [Little and Skolmen 1989].

    Hawai‘i has an enormous number of endemic crickets, with one group (Oecanthinae), the tree crickets, containing about 50 species in three genera [Otte 1989]. Pictured below is one unidentified Prognathogryllus tree cricket often found in the dead fronds of hāpuʻu where they lay their egg-cases.

Hawaiian Name

    Hāpuʻu is the common Hawaiian name for all four species of native Cibotium, while two of the four, C. glaucum and C. menziesii, have additional Hawaiian names [Palmer 2003]. (In modern times, to help with the proper pronunciation, Ulukau recommends that hāpuʻu be spelled with a kahakō over the "a" (ā).)

    Two meanings of ‘I‘i are "small, stunted, undersized, dwarf" and "reddish-brown." ‘I‘i‘i can mean "small, tiny" but also mean a "small hāpuʻu ‘i‘i and ‘ama‘u ‘i‘i ferns" [Pukui & Elbert 1986]. Kent [1986] in Ulukau defines ‘I‘i as "Short for hāpuʻu ‘i‘i." When used as a modifier in Hāpuʻu ‘i‘i, ‘I‘i likely means "reddish-brown," in reference to the hairs on this species' fronds, and less likely as "small" given the above-mentioned meanings of the other names, ‘I‘i and ‘I‘i‘i, used for this species.

Etymology

    Cibotium is from the Greek word kibotion, diminutive of kibotos, meaning "a box or casket," in reference to the indusium, a part of the fern's frond blade that covers the sorus (spores) [Gledhill 2008]. 

    The species name, menziesii, honors Archibald Menzies (1754–1842), a Scottish surgeon, botanist, and naturalist who visited and explored Hawai‘i, most notably as the naturalist on the British ship HMD Discovery, where he collected many plant and animal specimens for later classification [WikipediA;Archibald Menzies; 100 Princes Street].