Mahoe Tree Fruits Are Sweet As Pies on Magnum's May the Best One Win

Summary: Mahoe tree fruits are sweet as key lime pies and pecan pies on Magnum's May the Best One Win May 8, 2020, but are absent around Hawaiian cities.

closeup of foliage of Hawaiian mahoe tree (Alectryon macrococcus); Auwahi, East Maui; Friday, Feb. 24, 2006, 12:32:14: Forest & Kim Starr, CC BY 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

Mahoe tree fruits, absent from Hawaiian cities, are sweet as key lime pies and pecan pies on Magnum's May the Best One Win crime action drama television series episode May 8, 2020.

Director Peter Weller and writer Gene Hong bear key lime pies and pecan pies as culinary bribes for background checks and photographic decoys for contact information. Season Two's 19th episode, series' 39th overall, casts private investigators Juliet Higgins (Perdita Weeks) and Thomas Magnum (Jay Hernandez) into competitively checking which divorcing spouse cheats. John Gilbert (Daniel Bonjour) deports himself deviously to disguise his gambling dependency even as Maxine (Azita Ghanizada) delves into John's birth records for his biological father.

Ancient and traditional Hawaiians enjoyed endemic (from Greek ἐν, "in" and δῆμος, "people") mahoe tree fruits until non-endemic lime and pecan trees engendered non-endemically exquisite eats.

Kauai, Molokai, Oahu and western Maui feature the macrococcus (from Greek μακρός, "long" and κόκκος, "seed") variety even as the auwahiensis variety fits into Auwahi, Maui.

Mahoe trees, 'ala'alahua and mahoe locally and Alectryon macrococcus (from Greek ἀλεκτρυών, "rooster") scientifically, grow from black, edible seeds germinating after going through animal digestive tracts. Mild-flavored, wildlife-dispersed seeds hide within edible, mild-flavored to sweet-tasting arils (from Latin arillus, "tissue surrounding seed"), whose redness harvests Australian, related species the common name red-jackets. Cockscomb-like, large-seeded fruits inspire rooster-referencing genus and big-fruited species names by Joseph Gaertner (March 12, 1732-July 14, 1791) and Ludwig Radlkofer (Dec. 19, 1829-Feb. 16, 1927).

The Hawaiian language joins big-seeded, large-arilled double and single fruits into the local name mahoe (from Hawaiian māhoe, "twin") for mahoe tree fruits and mahoe trees.

Compound leaves with asymmetrical, leathery, net-veined, oval leaflets keep company with small flowers during spring and summer months from March through June, before summer-pollinated, summer-produced fruits.

The dark to medium green foliage lacks fuzz or lodges sparse fuzz in all but the Kauai locations of the big-seeded variety of large-fruited mahoe trees. The big-seeded, large-fruited variety of big-seeded, large-fruited mahoe trees, Alectryon macrococcus var. macrococcus scientifically, manifests minimal or no fuzz in Kauai locations during maturity, not youth. The auwahi variety, Alectryon macrococcus var. auwahiensis (from Latin -iēnsis, "[originating] in [Auwahi") scientifically, nets dense fuzz, like Kauai, unlike Molokai, Oahu and western Maui foliage.

The sunny, well-drained soils of gulch bottoms, gulch slopes and old lava fields optimize occurrences of mahoe tree fruits during five-plus-year life cycles of mahoe trees.

The Sapindaceae (from Latin sāpō, "soap," indicus, "Indian" and -āceae, "resembling") family member presents 13.12-foot to 36.09-foot to 549.21-plus-foot (4-meter to 11-meter to 15-plus-meter) mature heights.

The slow-growing member of hardwood mesic (from μέσος, "half [moist]") forests and woodlands queues up at 1,200- to 3,400-foot (365- to 1,035-meter) altitudes above sea level. Kauai's Kalalau Gulch and Olokele Canyon, Oahu's Waianae Mountains and Maui's Honokōwai Ditch Trail and Kahakapao Gulch retain mahoe trees, rated critically endangered May 15, 1992. Mahoe trees suffer from axis deer; black-tailed deer; fire; goats; habitat destruction and loss from introduced invasives such as plume poppies; pigs; rats; seed-borers; and twig-borers.

No added fats and sugars turn mahoe tree fruits into soupy travesties like terrible temperature-traumatized key lime pies for Officer Tatty Ryce (Anthony J. Silva, Jr.).

Juliet Higgins (Perdita Weeks) informs her business partner, Thomas Magnum (Jay Hernandez), that a sham marriage is not an acceptable solution to her overstaying her visa in Magnum P.I.'s May the Best One Win (season 2 episode 19); What2Vue@What2Vue, via Twitter May 4, 2020

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

closeup of foliage of Hawaiian mahoe tree (Alectryon macrococcus); Auwahi, East Maui; Friday, Feb. 24, 2006, 12:32:14: Forest & Kim Starr, CC BY 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Starr_060225-6122_Alectryon_macrococcus_var._auwahiensis.jpg; Forest & Kim Starr, CC BY 4.0 International, via Starr Environmental @ http://www.starrenvironmental.com/images/image/?q=24560724160; Forest and Kim Starr (Starr Environmental), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/starr-environmental/24560724160/

Juliet Higgins (Perdita Weeks) informs her business partner, Thomas Magnum (Jay Hernandez), that a sham marriage is not an acceptable solution to her overstaying her visa in Magnum P.I.'s May the Best One Win (season 2 episode 19); What2Vue@What2Vue, via Twitter May 4, 2020, @ https://twitter.com/What2Vue/status/1257406298347446274

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Marriner, Derdriu. 10 November 2019. "Lama Hawaiian Ebony Persimmon Augurs Magnum's Man in the Secret Room." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
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