Puʻu Kukui is a mountain peak in Hawaiʻi, the highest of the West Maui Mountains (Mauna Kahalawai). The 5,788-foot (1,764 m) summit rises above the Puʻu Kukui Watershed Management Area, an 8,661-acre (35.05 km2) private nature preserve maintained by the Maui Land & Pineapple Company. The peak was formed by a volcano whose calderaeroded into what is now the Iao Valley.
Puʻu Kukui receives an average of 386.5 inches (9,820 mm) of rain a year,[2] making it one of the wettest spots on Earth[3] and third wettest in the state after Big Bog on Maui and Mount Waiʻaleʻale on Kauai,[4] Rainwater unable to drain away flows into a bog. The soil is dense, deep, and acidic.[5]
Puʻu Kukui is home to many endemic plants, insects, and birds, including the greensword (Argyroxiphiumgrayanum), a distinctive bog variety of ʻōhiʻa lehua (Metrosideros polymorpha var. pseudorugosa)[6] and many lobelioid species. Due to the mountain peak's extreme climate and acidic peat soil, many species, such as the ʻōhiʻa, are represented as dwarfs. Access to the area is restricted to researchers and conservationists.
^"July 2008 Precipitation Summary". National Weather Service Forecast Office Honolulu, HI. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. September 4, 2008. Archived from the original on October 2, 2008. Retrieved February 20, 2009. The USGS gage on Puu Kukui lived up to expectation as the second wettest spot in the state by having the second highest total of 26.67 inches (79 percent of normal) below only Mount Waialeale's 30.30 inches.
