This is an unusual assembly of plants thought to share a name of common origin -- trees in Niue and Aotearoa of rather different appearance and classified as belonging to different botanical orders, and two vines in Hawai'i belonging to a different order again. However the names do follow the rules -- Proto-Polynesian /aw/ does sometimes become /ua/ (a form of methasis) in Niue and /oa/ in Hawai'i while remaining /aw/ in Māori (and of course Proto-Polynesian /t/ is regularly reflected by /k/ in Hawaiian and Proto-Polynesian /l/ becomes /r/ in Māori). So the names follow a well-beaten track even if it's hard to work out why they have been given to these particular plants. The similar names may simply be a series of coincidences; on the other hand there may be gaps in the record that would identify the other links among this odd trio (one such possibility is mentioned in the section on Aotearoa), so we will give the reconstructed name the benefit of the doubt.
Introduction (above)
*Tawali as Tuali in Niue
*Tawali as Koali in Hawai'i
*Tawali as Tawari in Aotearoa
Gallery
*Tawali as Tuali in Niue
 In Niue the name tuali applies primarily to the indigenous tree Syzygium dealatum. This tree is also native to Samoa (where it is known as asi vai), Tonga (where it is called fekika vao), Uvea and Futuna. It is a forest tree growing to about 15 m high. The tree has angled young stems and opposite leaves with prominent midribs and a vein around the margin. The leaves are 3 - 11 cm long, glossy on the upper surface, and may be acute or rounded at the base, wth a somewhat twisted apex at the tip. The inflorescences are borne on the tops of the branchlets, in the form of many-flowered widely branching panicles, 4 - 11 cm long and wider than long. The flowers have 260-360 stamens on showy white filaments 2 cm long, with white or purple petals 5-6 mm across. The purple fruit is eaten by bats and doves. The wood is used for fuel.
In the older works about the flora of Niue (e.g. Yuncker 1943) this tree has been confused with a closely related Samoan species, Syzygium clusiifolium. The two trees are very similar and in Samoa are found in similar habitats. However S. clusiifolium has rounded young branches, and its flowers are borne along the branches rather than at the tips. This error has been corrected in Peter Heenan's Plants and Fungi of Niue NaturaList.
*Tawali as Koali in Hawai'i
 Although Angela Kay Keppler says that koali or kowali can be used as a generic name for all varieties of "morning glory" in Hawai'i (Hawaiian Heritage Plants, p. 138), the word refers especially to two species, the "ivy leaved morning glory" Ipomoea cairica (illustrated on the left), and the "bitter moning glory" I. indica (in the gallery, below). Ipomoea cairica, koali 'ai, produces vines up to 4 m. long, woody at the base. Its leaf blades are 3-10 cm wide and divided into 5-7 lobes, with petioles (stalks) up to about a third the length of the blades. The funnel-shaped flowers are 4-6 centimetres long with slender tubes with a purple centre opening out into a purplish-white top with 5 petal-like divisions.
Ipomoea cairica is native to tropical Africa and Asia, and thought by Wagner et al. to have been a Polynesian introduction to Hawai'i; it is noted as particularly common in Hawai'i by Art Whistler (Wayside Plants, p.56), who regards it as native also to the Pacific Islands. The tubers of this and related species were used as food in times of famine, and the vines were twined together to make hawsers. The shore-dwelling species like I. indica also had an important role in stabilizing sand dunes. As noted below, the plants also had medicinal uses.
Isabella Abbott (Lā'au Hawai'i, p.100) notes that I. cairica and I. indica are both properly referred to as koali, and both occur in dry areas. Koali 'ai was one of the fallback foods when crops perished. It was leaves divided into 5-7 parts, whereas koali 'awa is "the more typical morning glory" with heart-shaped leaves and flowers which are blue in the morning and pink in the afternoon. The roots, leaves, stems and flowers of koali 'awa were used as a purge, "sometimes with drastic results". It was also used in treating broken bones -- the bark of the roots of the vines was mashed with salt and deposited on top of tī leaf (to prevent burning of the skin) over the wound after the break had been set, and the poultice kept in place until the fracture had healed. Apparently this was considered so effective a remedy that it was also used on cattle and horses.
 The leaf blades of Ipomoea indica are either entire or sometimes three-lobed, 5-9 cm. long, and with the petiole about as long a the leaf. The flowers usually appear singly or in small groups. They are funnel shaped, slender at the base and opening out to 6-8 cm in diameter, usually blue or purple, but occasionally white. The stems of the vines are woody at the base, up to 5 m. long and much branched. The species is common at low elevations (although it may be found as far as 1200 m above sea level) in disturbed areas. It is pan-tropical in distribution, with a white-flowered variant found from Asia to Florida. The base of the flower, rich in nectar, is too narrow for the Hawaiian carpenter bee to reach by entering the flower, so instead it resorts to robbing it of the nectar (rather than pollinating the flower in exchange) by penetrating the base of the flower from outside. This bee (pictured on the right, and at work in the first photograph in the gallery below), Xylocarpa sonorina, also known as the Valley Carpenter Bee, is native from Texas up to northern California, and was introduced to Hawaii in the 19th Century.
*Tawali as Tawari in Aotearoa
 The member of this group in Aotearoa, the endemic species Ixerba brexioides, is a tree up to 10 m. or more tall, with a slender trunk anything from 20 cm to 1 m. in diameter. The branchlets and leaf stalks are covered with fine hairs when young. The wood is hard and dense. The tree has narrow lance-shaped leaves, 6 - 16 cm long by 1 - 4 cm wide with 2 cm long petioles. The leaves are dark green above, thick in texture, with blunt serrations; each tooth is tipped with a gland. They are either alternate or in groups of 3 or more circling the stems. The flowers are borne in panicles of 5-10 waxy flowers at the end of the branchlets, each flower quite large (up to 3.5 cm in diameter), with white petals, long stamens tipped with pink anthers and a single style per flower. The ovary is surrounded at the base by nectar-secreting tissue. The flowers have copious supplies of watery nectar much sought after by birds (the main pollinators) and bees, and the source of an excellent honey. They have a name of their own, whakahou, and were once strung into necklaces and garlands.
 The fruit take the form of seed capsules, 1 to 1.5 cm in diameter, with a fleshy inner surface (see the illustration to the right) each with up to six long, glossy black seeds attached to fleshy arils eagerly swallowed by birds, along with the seeds.
The Tawari is a tree of lowland and lower montane forests, confined naturally to the upper North Island from Ahipara to Kawhia and Waikaremoana. It is also a denizen of the forest interior, rarely found on the margins. In the Waikato it is characteristic of higher altitudes, and a dominant tree on Maungatutari from about 600 m. above sea level, above 800 m. on Pirongia, and on the upper reaches of the Kaimai ranges. However, it is absent from Mount Karioi. The tree flowers from November to January.
Although these three sets of plants, Kuali, Koali and Tawari, seem an odd trio to have names from a common origin, it may well be that the the abundant sweet nectar is the element that links these them and is reflected in their inherited names.
Gallery
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