I think of this as an emergency room or a hospital. My goal is to see all of these plants growing back out in the wild. Basically, I want to put myself out of business. But the threats that pushed such plants to endangered species status still exist. Pigs and goats love to eat the cyanea, Koob said.
Rats eat the seeds and some of the leaves.
Slugs attack the plants. Thus far, Koob has tried to grow 73 species of rare native Hawaiian plants. Fifty efforts have been successful. The other 23 failed, for any number of reasons. Often the samples are too old or contaminated by fungi or bactgeria.