It has a wide distribution and has been recorded from India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Sabah, the Philippines, Taiwan, Sulawesi, Australia, Fiji, Tahiti, Samoa, Hawaii and the Marquesas.
Much of Polynesia, including the original settlers of Hawaii, Tahiti, Rapa Iti and Easter Island, was settled by Marquesans, believed to have departed from the Marquesas as a result more frequently of overpopulation and drought-related food shortages, than because of the nearly constant warfare that eventually became a prominent feature of the islands' culture.
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Famous French painter Paul Gauguin and Belgian singer Jacques Brel spent the last years of their lives in the Marquesas, and are buried there.
It is found in large parts of the Pacificm including the Marquesas, Rapa Iti, Fiji, the New Hebrides, the Kermadec Islands, the Solomons, Java and Malaya.
As part of the Russian world expedition, A. J. Krusenstern in the "Nadeshda" and J. F. Lisjansky in the "Neva" sailed to the islands of East Polynesia, including Easter Island, Marquesas and Hawaii.
Karl von den Steinen (born March 7, 1855 in Mülheim, died November 4, 1929 in Kronberg im Taunus) was a German physician (with emphasis in psychiatry), ethnologist, explorer, and author of important anthropological work, which is particularly to the study of Indian cultures of Central Brazil, and the art of the Marquesas.
The plant was first described in 1966, after a single tree with a few seedlings was discovered on Tahuata, an island in the Marquesas group of French Polynesia that had been severely deforested by livestock: cattle, goats, horses, and pigs.
An 18th-century name for Ua Huka, later extended as the "Washington Islands" to include all of the northern Marquesas Islands
Sinoto's Lorikeet (Vini sinotoi), an extinct parrot species in the Marquesas Islands and Sir Yosihiko Sinoto, a hybrid variety of hibiscus, are both named for him.