Ohia trees are dying rapidly, Why?

[peteadams]

We hand cleared nearly two acres for garden display beds for the nursery. Regular guava, strawberry guava, paperbark and tibouchina, along with heavy stands of California grass, densely covered the property. Within a year we started seeing ohia seedlings popping up from the cleared ground. We were lucky to have a large mother tree and several smaller ones on the windward side of the property (the area had been mostly logged off many years ago and subsequently used for agricultural purposes). Now several years later many of the seedlings are 3 to 4 feet tall and a few larger and they are still coming up. I would suppose that any land that once hosted ohia and has not been bulldozed or cultivated heavily could restart from the seed bank. Lacking volunteer seedlings, ohia seed is fairly easy to germinate. This is a good time to look for and collect the seed pods (ask! if it's not your property), best if from a nearby area as there is some selection for rainfall and elevation. Ohias produce plentiful amounts of seed.