Jeffrey Wayne Gibson, age 13, of Wichita, Kan. for his question:

Where does the silversword grow?

Picture yourself in the Hawaiian Islands, standing on the floor of an old volcanic crater. Surely no plant can survive in these dark, dry cinders, in the glare of the vivid sunshine. But there they are the silverswords, looking like round pincushions packed with silver white daggers. Here and there, one of these strange plants has a towering stem bedecked with hundreds of lavender blue flowers.

Mlost plants have world wide relatives, often adapted for life in several climate zones. Not so the silversword. It grows only on certain volcanic mountains in the Hawaiian Islands. These regions lie within National Parks, where all native plants and animals are protected by law. One species is the rare and remarkable silversword.

One of its limited locales is Haleakala Park on the Island of Maui. It includes the top of an enormous volcanic mountain, with a  summit some 10,000 feet high. Its ragged crags plunge 3000 feet to a desolate cindery crater, covering 19 square miles. Haleakala's name means House of the Sun, but the fiery old volcano is now dormant, though not entirely extinct.

Here among the impossible cinders, the silversword and a few other unique species manage to survive in the cool dry air and brilliant sunshine. The Hawaiian name "ahina¬hina" means "silver hair," though from a distance the silversword looks like a ball of silver white daggers. One has to look closely to see that its spikey leaves are covered with small white hairs that add the silvery gleam.

In this high, dry, alpine region, the thirsty sunlit air evaporates moisture from unprotected plant cells. The leafy daggers of the silversword have tough skins, and their furry little hairs reflect away much of the glare. Thus the silversword conserves moisture from shower to shower. But nevertheless it  grows slowly.

After about 20 patient years, it is ready to flower. A tall sticky stem sprouts from the center, bearing several hundred buds. The buds grow graceful stems topped with flower pompons of lavender blue. Crawling bugs are stopped by the sticky goo, but flying insects arrive to take the nectar and to pollinate the flowers. When the seeds are ripe and ready to go, the parent silversword withers and dies.

This rare and remarkable plant also grows on the larger Island of Hawaii, some 40 miles to the southeast. As you would expect, we find it in similar alpine conditions, high up in volcanic craters and on the cindery slopes. These silverswords also grow in a _National Park where, they are protected from mindless souvenir hunters.

The Hawaiian Islands were built by eruptions from submarine volcanoes. For a while, their cindery slopes stood bare and barren, out there in the mid Pacific. Gradually the winds, waves and birds brought seeds from far distant lands. In time the islands had lush vegetation. The silversword species is classed in the sunflower family. But nobody knows what the original plants were like or hoes they adjusted and became unique.