ʻUlu

ʻUlu

ʻUlu

Names

  • ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi: ‘Ulu
  • English: Breadfruit
  • Scientific: Artocarpus altilis

 Species Information

This is a monoecious tree, meaning it has male and female reproductive organs on the same individual plant.  It can grow to almost 90 feet tall and is evergreen in the humid tropics.  Leaves are ovate to elliptical in outline and undivided when young, while older ones are cut into pointed lobes.  The male flowers grow in an upright yellowish-green cylinder at the branch tips. The female flowers form a large ball just below the male flowers. It is this female flower that develops into a spherical green globe.  The pale yellow juicy pulp is edible.  All parts of the tree are rich in white gummy latex (Rojas-Sandoval and Acevedo-Rodriguez, 2024).

The large fruit can be eaten and used in both savory and sweet dishes, the latter including a poi.  The lightweight wood is used for drums, poi boards, surfboards, and more (Abbott, 1992).  It is said that the original ulu maika was a disk cut from immature breadfruit.  A yellow-brown dye is made from male flowers (Krauss, 1993).

Distribution

The exact orgin is uncertain, but it is believed to be native to Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and the Philippines.  It has long been a staple food crop in Polynesia and is widely cultivated throughout the tropics (Ragone, 2011).

Habitat

A. altilis is not considered naturalized but is cultivated in hot, moist areas (Wagner et al., 1990).

Photos

ʻUlu

 

References & Additional Resources

  • Abbott, Isabella Aiona. Lā’au Hawai’i : Traditional Hawaiian Uses of Plants. Bishop Museum Press, 1992.
  • Krauss, Beatrice H. Plants in Hawaiian Culture. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993.
  • Ragone, D. “Artocarpus altilis (revised).” Farm and Forestry Production and Marketing for Breadfruit. Species profiles for Pacific island agroforestry. Permanent Agriculture Resources (PAR), Holualoa, Hawaii [ed. by Elevitch, CR] (2011).
  • Rojas-Sandoval, J. and Acevedo-Rodriguez, P., 2024. Artocarpus altilis. In: CABI Compendium. Wallingford, UK: CAB International.  https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/full/10.1079/cabicompendium.1822
  • Wagner, Warren L., Derral R. Herbst, and S. H. Sohmer.  Manual of the Flowering Plants of Hawai’i. University of Hawaii Press, 1990.