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Introduction (below)
*K/Qolomea
*K/Qolomea ~ *Solo(w)eka
Horoeka
Gallery
The true origin of the names of this unique New Zealand tree and its possible tropical Polynesian namesakes is lost in the mists of time, and, in contrast to many other names, the case for their relationship is also rather misty.
One possibility, recorded in the Pollex database, is that the Maori and Tahitian words are reflexes of a hypothetical Proto-Polynesian word *Soloeka or perhaps *Soloweka. This would account for the Māori reflex horoeka and, mostly, its Tahitian cognate oroea -- probably oro'e'a, as it is an alternate form of toro'e'a -- recorded in the Davis dictionary, which did not mark glottal stops (John Davis, A Tahitian and English Dictionary, Tahiti, The London Missionary Society's Press, 1855). One would expect the Tahitian word to have an initial "h" if the ancestral form began with *s (or *f), however, so the match is not quite complete.
The alternative whakapapa takes the name all the way back to the Solomon Islands, and makes this tree one which can mark that stage in the Polynesian migration to Aotearoa (see Stage 8 on the "Genalogy of Names" page for further details). The route for the word is about as circuitous as the detour from Samoa or thereabouts to the Solomons on the way to Tahiti. First we start in the area of South Solomons and nearby Polynesian outliers -- a scattering of small islands from Nukuoro and Kapingamarangi in the north to Rennell and Tikopia in the south. Here a plant name combining the Proto-Polynesian *mea "red, reddish" (still the same in form and meaning in modern Māori), and a formative morpheme *kolo or *qolo (where "q" stands for a glottal stop) is coined. The surviving reflex of this is the Rennellese word kogomea, for the red-flowered Hibiscus cooperi, native to Vanuatu, and a shrub which has been cultivated in that part of the world for centuries. Then, sometime later, a little further north nearer the centre of the group a variant qolomea is coined or adopted, and taken to East Polynesia by the first settlers of that region. This becomes the forerunner of the Hawaiian plant name olomea (Perottetia sandwicensis), a tree with red stems, a single trunk, and hard wood, Tahitian oroea (?oro'e'a; Cyclophyllum barbatum) and and Maori horoeka (Pseudopanax crassifolius), both denoting small trees with single trunks, topknots of leaves and upright branches, and hard wood.
The second explanation has a few more problems than the first, as it requires both Tahitian and Maori to have lost the "m" in "mea" (unusual, as the form actually has meaning and is retained in other combinations, but not completely without parallel), and an epenthetic "k" has been inserted between the vowels (this does occasionally happen in Māori -- e.g. tēnei ~ tēneki "this", but it is not common). Māori "h" is more easily explained by a proto *s than a proto glottal stop. Tahitian regularly changes *k to a glottal stop, and sporadically also uses a glottal stop where the proto-language is thought to have had *w, so there is no problem there, either. Since the red and orange characteristics of the kogomea and olomea are much less a feature of the oro'e'a and horoeka, the "mea" would also be less salient, and that might perhaps account for the disappearing *m.
There are a few "sound similar" words from Southeastern Polynesia to throw into the mix:
toro'e'a (Tahiti, Tuamotus, Leeward Islands): Cyclophyllum barbatum;
toroe'a (Tuamotus) Cyclophyllum barbatum;
orotea (Mitiaro, 'Afiu, Ma'uke) Cyclophyllum barbatum (-tea is a reflex of a Proto-Polynesian morpheme signifying "white");
orotea (Mangaia) Elaeocarpus tonganus (= karaka in Rarotonga).
One solution to the problem would be to imagine that no matter what the name's ultimate origin, by the time it got to Aotearoa whoever named the horoeka was reminded of the Cyclophyllum they had seen back in Tahiti or the Tuamotus, and either they arrived while the assumed earlier name *soroeka was still current, and the changes to the Tahitian word took place later, or if the name originated in the West, the name used in Aotearoa was an approximation rather than a copy of the Tahitic original. That would neither confirm nor preclude a link to the Hawaiian name; that's a mystery which can be solved another day!
*K/Qolomea
Hibiscus cooperi (Rennellese Kogomea)
 This very attractive shrub has been cultivated as a garden plant for centuries, and was long regarded by botanists as a variety or cultivar of Hibiscus rosa-sinensis, an Asian species long distributed throughout Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and now around the world, which is the source or co-parent of many horticultural varieties of Hibiscus. However it is now clear that Hibiscus cooperi is a species in its own right, endemic to Vanuatu, but widely cultivated first in the tropical Western Pacific and now internationally (see the 2020 article "Kaute: an endemic East Polynesian Hibiscus?" by Lex Thomson and others for more information about this). It is a compact shrub growing to about 6m (but can reach 9m) in height, with somewhat attenuated leaves varigated with a splash of white, light green and pink. The pink colour fades as the leaf matures. The stems are red, and the flower a bright red, about 10 cm across.
On the Island of Rennell, a "Polynesian outlier" which, with the nearby island of Bellona, constitutes the southernmost province of the Solomon Islands, this plant has been given the name kogomea, probably in reference to its red (Proto-Polynesian *mea) stems and flowers. Professor William Wilson ("The Northern Outliers-East Polynesian Hypothesis Expanded", p. 408) derives this ultimately from a Proto-South Solomons/East Polynesian word *Kolomea or *Qolomea, which, as noted above, in turn provides the links to Horoeka.
Perottettia sandwicensis: Hawaiian Olomea
 Professor Wilson's hypothesis suggests that the initial settlement of the Marquesas and Hawai'i took place through the Line Islands (a group of 11 attols and coral islands stretching from Kiribati 1400 miles northeast towards Hawaii). It is likely that the olomea (Perottettia sandwicensis) was named at this stage, while there was still regular contact among the Eastern Polynesian speakers who were settling the Society Islands and other parts of East Polynesia. The name was well chosen, even though the plant has little resemblance to the Rennellese kogomea. The Hawaiian tree has tiny, greenish-orange to red flowers, but these are followed by large bunches of bright red fruit. The branches are also red in colour. Although the leaves are light green, they have red or reddish-orange veins and petioles, so that when the tree is fruiting, there is definitely an overall impression of redness.
Wagner et al. (Manual of the Flowering Plants of Hawai'i, p. 531) note that the early Hawaiians made fire using the hard wood if this tree by rapidly rotating a piece against the softer wood of the hau tree (Hibiscus tilliaceus). It grows 2-6 or 8 metres tall, and is a common understory tree in wet forest 300-1250 m. above sea level.
*Qolomea ~ *Soro(w)eka
Cyclophyllum barbatum: Tahitian Oroea ~ Oro'e'a
 In terms of its history, the Tahitian name fits either scenario -- *qolomea from the South Solomons or *soroweka from somewhere closer to home. The change from *mea to ea is rather odd, but, as noted in the introduction above, "*m" occasionally disappears in other words; furthermore, the tree lacks the conspicuous red ambience of its putative Hawaiian and Rennellese namesakes. The tree's natural range is from Fiji to the Marquesas. In the Cook Islands this tree is native to Rarotonga and other islands in the Southern Cooks. In Rarotonga it is known as Mātira, in Mangaia as Māriri, in Atiu and Ma'uke as 'Orotea (the equivalent in NZ Māori would be "horotea"), and in Makatea as Orotea.
The tree usually has a near-vertical trunk to 4-6 metres and about 10 cm in diameter. Usually the trunk is not evenly round, but has four broad bulges which sometimes show a slight spiralling. Older trees typically show a twisted 4-lobed trunk that would have a kind of 4-leaf clover shape in cross-section (see the picture in the gallery at the end of this page). The branches are clustered near the top, and they tend to be horizontal to about 1.5 metres in length. Occasionally trees to about 8 metres high may be encountered, with much thicker trunks. The flowers are small (a little less than a centimetre in diameter), with fruit in the form of an orange drupe 9-13 mm long and nearly as wide. The leaves are 5-14 cm long with a petiole 3-8 cm long.
In Samoa, where it is known as ola vai, it is one of the common shrubs colonizing older lava flows. It has a hard wood occasionally used in house construction and for coconut husking sticks. (Ola is a generic name in Samoan for members of the Rubiaceae -- coffee family -- with hard timber suitable for axe handles, and whose fruit is esteemed by pigeons.) Cyclophyllum barbatum has also been identified as one of the primary sources of wood for fuel in Ancient Polynesia (Emilie Dotte-Saurot & Jennifer Kahn, "Ancient Woodlands of Polynesia", p. 7).
Horoeka
 Horoeka is also a tree whose fruit is esteemed by pigeons, as evidenced by the photograph at the beginning of this page showing a kereru in situ in Te Māra Reo. It is a round-headed tree up to 15 metres high, with a straight fluted trunk up to 50 cm in diameter, found throughout Aotearoa in forest and shrubland up to about 760 metres above sea-level. It is also one of the strangest trees in the New Zealand flora. It was one of the first trees collected by Banks and Solander on Cook's 1769 voyage, and descriptions of both the juvenile and mature forms were included in Solander's unpublished manuscript describing their collection -- as distinct species: Aralia crassifolia for the mature plant and Xerophylla longifolia for the juvenile tree. It is not hard to see why -- both trees in the illustration on the left are Horoeka at different stages of their life cycle. The juvenile form has long, narrow, rigid woody leaves, sword-shaped and toothed, up to 60 cm. or more in length, attached to a single stem and tending to droop, partly because of their weight. They are not more than 1 cm. across, a polished black with green tinges, and have a prominent, yellowish midvein. The stem of the young tree eventually becomes a slender trunk, and branches are developed to form a leafy crown.
While maturing the tree at first has a crown of long, rigid leaves, followed by compound leaves with 3-5 leaflets, still fairly narrow and prominently toothed, but more leathery. These are followed by similar leaves, but broader and thicker, with longer petioles. Then come simple leaves, 10-15 cm long, no longer prominently toothed, dark green and with short petioles. However long, downward-pointing leaves may persist for 15 years, along with shorter, wider ones. Shoots from the trunk will have the juvenile form. The mature leaves are thick and leathery, 10-20 cm long by 2-3cm wide. They have a prominent mid-vein, and a short stout petiole.
The mature trees have large clusters of very small greenish flowers -- only the male ones have a calyx and petals. The parts of the flower (petals, stamens etc.) are arranged in groups of 5. The purple fruits are only about 4 mm. in diameter, but are relished by kereru and other fruit-eating birds. Abundant flowering is taken as a sign that birds will be plentiful in the following year.
The timber is very tough, and the wood was used for making pigeon spears. According to Murdoch Riley (Herbal, p. 144), South Island Māori made paint brushes for doing rock paintings by pounding the leaves and tying the fibres into a brush. He also quotes a paper on Pharmacopea by John Wright stating that the inner bark has a gum-like fluid which, if chewed, is released to "gently open the bowels after the effects of diarrhoea have passed".
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