More bad weather today, but yesterday wasn't so bad. After my last post I walked up the road in towards the interior of the island to see how far I could get. I figured I wouldn't get very far, but I ended up hiking all the way to the Belvédère (a lookout point with a spectacular view of Opunohu and Cook Bays, and the immensely tall Mt. Rotui in between). Several people stopped along the way to ask if I needed a ride, and finally I accepted a ride up the last half kilometer or so to the Belvédère. Partway up I stopped by the ruins of a marae (a Polynesian temple) and of an archery platform which had been excavated and restored.

Most of the forest is clearly not native, consisting of hibiscus, Australian pine (Casuarina), breadfruit, and other trees brought in by the Polynesians and then the Europeans. Many of these plants were the same as I saw in Hawaii last summer. I saw some Miconia, the Central American giant weed that is taking over a lot of French Polynesia. By the time I got to the Belvédère, though, it was clear that I had found a lot of the native Polynesian flora, with trees like Metrosideros and Pandanus, vines like Freycinetia, and thick beds of ferns that I assume were Dicranopteris. All of these plants are native to Hawaii as well. I even thought I found two species of Glochidion (what I was looking for), but when I got back to CRIOBE I realized they weren't. It was a productive afternoon, because it means I can easily get to one recommended field site without a car.