Countless millennia ago, a relative of the sunflower landed on Haleakalā . Dropped by the wind or from the wings of a bird, it landed as a seed in a totally unfamiliar world with all new challenges.
Those challenges (little soil, arid conditions, intense solar radiation, extreme temperatures) shaped its constant evolution, forcing it to adapt to a fierce, rocky alpine desert, raked by cold winds until it became the silver, spiky plant called ‘āhinahina or Haleakalā Silversword.
Because of the perfect storm of its origins, context, and time, it is an endemic -
found here and only here in the high, dry alpine desert over 7000 feet (2130 m) above sea level.

The spiky plant on the right is the ‘Āhinahina. Furry, reflective (solar radiation is brutal up here), silver spiky leaves catch drifting cloud moisture and aim it toward the plant base.
An ‘āhinahina can bloom in its first years of life or may wait several decades to send up
the densely fragrant stalk of hundreds of purple sunflower-like blooms.

The plant on the left is the Kūpaoa, it is also one of the members of the Silversword Alliance.

Part of the gallery: Birds of Maui