PlantKey Open ecological atlas
Planner
Home / Browse / Diospyros / Elama
iNaturalist — CC, credited & licensed per image
Ebenaceae family

Elama Diospyros hillebrandii

Native

Elama is a perennial tree native to Hawaii.

More about this plant

Diospyros hillebrandii is a species of flowering tree in the ebony family, Ebenaceae, that is endemic to the islands of Oʻahu and Kauaʻi in Hawaii. Its common name, Ēlama, also means torch or lamp in Hawaiian. Ēlama is a small to medium-sized tree, reaching a height of 4–10 m (13–33 ft). It can be found in coastal mesic and mixed mesic forests at elevations of 150–760 m (490–2,490 ft). Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Lifespan
Perennial
In the garden
Tree layer (canopy / understory) — Sits in the tree of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~46 caterpillar species

Diospyros supports ~46 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a strong genus.

Recorded feeding on Diospyros in North America, including:

Acronicta longa · Long-Winged Dagger Moth Actias luna · Luna Moth Alypia wittfeldii · Wittfeld's Forester Moth Anacamptodes humaria · geometer (inchworm) moth Antepione thisoaria · Variable Antepione Artace cribraria · lappet (tent caterpillar) moth
+ 8 more species →
Automeris io · giant silk moth Callosamia promethea · Promethea Moth Catocala piatrix · The Penitent Citheronia regalis · Regal Moth Cnidocampa flavescens · slug moth Coptodisca diospyriella Cossula magnifica · Pecan Carpenterworm Moth Cryptothelea gloverii · bagworm moth
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
Sources for this entry (12) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status
[07] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[08] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[09] Conservation rank — NatureServe Explorer (CC BY)
[10] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[11] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
[12] County range — GBIF Open Data — open-licensed occurrences (CC0/CC-BY) → county
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

Citation

Loading…

BibTeX 
Loading…