Schiedea lydgatei is a rare species of flowering plant in the pink family

Caryophyllaceae

The Caryophyllaceae, commonly called the pink family or carnation family, is a family of flowering plants. It is included in the dicotyledon order Caryophyllales in the APG III system, alongside 33 other families, including Amaranthaceae, Cactaceae and Polygonaceae...

 known by the common name Kamalo Gulch schiedea and Pacific schiedea. It is endemic to Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

, where it is known only from the island of Molokai

Molokai

Molokai or Molokai is an island in the Hawaiian archipelago. It is 38 by 10 miles in size with a land area of , making it the fifth largest of the main Hawaiian Islands and the 27th largest island in the United States. It lies east of Oahu across the 25-mile wide Kaiwi Channel and north of...

. It is threatened by the degradation and destruction of its habitat. It is a federally listed endangered species

Endangered species

An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...

 of the United States.

This plant is a subshrub

Shrub

A shrub or bush is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, usually under 5–6 m tall. A large number of plants may become either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...

 growing up to a meter tall. It is the only hermaphroditic

Plant sexuality

Plant sexuality covers the wide variety of sexual reproduction systems found across the plant kingdom. This article describes morphological aspects of sexual reproduction of plants....

 species among genus Schiedea; it is likely the plant's ancestors were gynodioecious, with some all-female flowers and the others bisexual. The flowers have green sepal

Sepal

A sepal is a part of the flower of angiosperms . Collectively the sepals form the calyx, which is the outermost whorl of parts that form a flower. Usually green, sepals have the typical function of protecting the petals when the flower is in bud...

s and no petals. The flowers have a sweet fragrance during certain times of the day. Pyralid moths

Pyralidae

The Pyralidae or snout moths are a family of Lepidoptera in the ditrysian superfamily Pyraloidea. In many classifications, the grass moths are included in the Pyralidae as a subfamily, making the combined group one of the largest families in the Lepidoptera...

 can commonly be found on the flowers. They are probably also pollinated

Pollination

Pollination is the process by which pollen is transferred in plants, thereby enabling fertilisation and sexual reproduction. Pollen grains transport the male gametes to where the female gamete are contained within the carpel; in gymnosperms the pollen is directly applied to the ovule itself...

 by the wind.

This plant grows in moist forests and shrublands on Molokai. There are probably fewer than 10,000 individuals remaining. It is threatened by fire, feral

Feral

A feral organism is one that has changed from being domesticated to being wild or untamed. In the case of plants it is a movement from cultivated to uncultivated or controlled to volunteer. The introduction of feral animals or plants to their non-native regions, like any introduced species, may...

 ungulates, and introduced species

Introduced species

An introduced species — or neozoon, alien, exotic, non-indigenous, or non-native species, or simply an introduction, is a species living outside its indigenous or native distributional range, and has arrived in an ecosystem or plant community by human activity, either deliberate or accidental...

of plants.