Mo Ganji: Wood’s Hau Kuahiwi | Wood’s Hau Kuahiwi | Hibiscadelphus woodii | No. 241/250 from work group 8/99

Wood’s Hau Kuahiwi | Wood’s Hau Kuahiwi | Hibiscadelphus woodii

Mo Ganji turns toward Wood’s Hau Kuahiwi — a rare flowering plant endemic to the montane forests of Hawaiʻi — by letting the single line move toward essence rather than botanical rarity or loss narrative. The line condenses the being into a reduced coherence, setting aside blossom, leaf and taxonomy so that presence can surface without description. In Ganji’s understanding, the line does not belong to the plant alone; it remains open, reminding us that every form is also a human concept provisionally placed upon a living process.

Hibiscadelphus woodii is listed as Extinct in the Wild (EW) on the IUCN Red List. Native to the island of Kauaʻi, the species was known from only a handful of individuals growing on steep cliffs. The last wild plant died in the early 21st century, and despite intensive efforts, no naturally surviving populations remain. A small number of individuals are maintained through ex situ conservation.

The principal causes of decline include habitat loss, landslides, browsing by introduced animals, invasive plant species, and the extreme vulnerability associated with very small populations. Because the species existed in a highly specific and fragile niche, it had no capacity to recover once conditions shifted. Its disappearance in the wild reflects the cumulative impact of multiple pressures rather than a single event.

Ganji’s single line opens a space in which the plant can be encountered beyond extinction or memorial. It allows the being to be perceived as a form that once took part in a living continuum, suggesting how absence itself becomes a presence — not as an ending, but as a reminder of how easily continuity can be severed when what sustains it is treated as marginal or replaceable.