Hawai'ian Cotton Gossypium tomentosum
Hawai'ian Cotton is a perennial shrub native to Hawaii. It grows to 6 ft in full sun – part shade, with brown fruit. A host for pollen-specialist native bees.
More about this plant
Gossypium tomentosum, commonly known as maʻo, huluhulu or Hawaiian cotton, is a species of cotton plant that is endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. Genetic studies indicate that Hawaiian cotton is related to American species of Gossypium, with its closest relative Gossypium hirsutum. Wikipedia →
Growing & care
USDA PLANTS · TRY- Sun
- Full sun – part shade
- Soil & moisture
- Medium moisture
- Soil pH
- 6–7
- Fertility need
- Medium
- Adapts to
- Coarse (sandy), Medium (loam), Fine (clay)
- Hardiness
- USDA zone 12+
- Height
- 6 ft
- Mature width
- ~ 4 ft wide DERIVED derived estimate — open-grown crown allometry (height × growth-form ratio); not a measurement
- Spacing
- 2–5 ft apart from USDA planting density
- Spread
- Moderate
- Growth rate
- Moderate
- Growth form
- Single stem
- Lifespan
- Perennial · long-lived
- Foliage
- Broadleaf · medium texture
- Active growth
- Year-round
- Fruit
- Brown persists into winter
- Propagate by
- Seed, Bare root, Container
- Seed starting
- No stratification needed
- Seeds ripen
- Year-round seed-collection / harvest window
- In the trade
- Routinely available
- Resprouts if cut
- Yes regrows after top-kill
Sow timing keys off your local last- and first-frost dates.
Wildlife & pollinators
How pollinator value is scored →❧ Caterpillar hosts ~59 caterpillar species
Gossypium supports ~59 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 Gossypium in North America, including:
✦ Bees specialist-bee host · 1 bee visitor
Specialist native bees depend on it.
Some native bees are pollen specialists (oligolectic) — they raise young only on pollen from particular plant genera. Gossypium is a recorded specialist-bee host, so losing it can mean losing the bee that relies on it.
1 native & managed bee species is documented visiting Hawai'ian Cotton :
Related plants
More Gossypium →
How we know this (2) Methods & honest limits
A recorded categorical fact: each species is tagged C3 (standard), C4 (heat/water-efficient) or CAM (succulent, night-time CO₂ uptake) — or a facultative combination. We only show a trait card for the noteworthy C4/CAM cases; C3 is the unremarkable majority, kept in the data but not surfaced as a card.
For woody plants that have a height but no measured crown, we estimate width = height × a crown-to-height ratio fit for that plant’s form (conifers narrower than broadleaf trees, shrubs widest), calibrated on our measured open-grown crowns and capped at the largest one ever measured. A measured crown always wins; herbaceous plants get nothing (no anchor).
Honest limits: A coarse class-median estimate for garden-scale spacing, not a measurement; woody single/multi-stem forms only.
Sources for this entry (30) Open & cited
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).
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