People wanting to give fragrant, locally grown lei for tomorrow's graduation at the University of Hawai'i most likely will have to settle for imported orchids that don't smell nearly as nice.

An unusually wet and cold growing season stunted this year's crop of tuberose, pikake, puakenikeni, ginger and other flowers popular for lei — just as demand has spiked for May Day, Mother's Day and high school and college graduations.

The dark and wet conditions also made the crops vulnerable to rot and fungus, and the continued rains often washed away chemical treatments.

"It was very cold for most of February and March and well into April," said Edwin Mersino, a county extension agent who works with growers on O'ahu. "It was unseasonably cold on average — 5 to 10 degrees colder. So the plants were set back and things didn't grow as fast. For many of the growers, they're going to miss graduation."

Lei sellers, for the most part, expect to meet the seasonal demand by replacing popular local flowers with imported orchids from places such as Thailand and Malaysia.

When she can get a few orders of tuberose filled, Lana Haasenritter weaves them delicately in among imported orchids to at least give her customers a whiff of the flowers they really want.

"There's lei, but it may not be a pure tuberose or a pure puakenikeni," said Haasenritter, whose family runs AhLan's Lei Stand in Hilo. "We're stretching the tuberose with orchids to meet the demand for graduations and May Day because everybody's looking for smell."

Four generations of Haasenritter's family have been running AhLan's Lei Stand since the 1940s and she can't remember a bigger shortage of tuberose, pikake and other locally grown flowers.

"This is the lowest I've ever seen in the supply of flowers," Haasenritter said.

Hawai'i saw its lei-flower industry grow to $3.64 million in 2007, up 3 percent from the year before, according to the latest data from the state Department of Agriculture.

PRODUCTION DOWN

This year's lei flower production won't be known for another year. But all indications suggest that production will be way down.

"We've had an extremely bad winter that caused people to lose production, lose crops and stop people from planting," said Eric Tanouye, vice president and general manager of Greenpoint Nurseries in Hilo, who also serves as vice president of the Hawai'i Tropical Flower Council. "It was an extremely long, somewhat cold and really dark winter."

On behalf of lei flower growers, Tanouye said, "our industry apologizes for having to use imports. But you have to do that if you're going to continue to supply demand."

Erin Igawa, administrative assistant at Aloha Island Lei and Floral in Kaka'ako, hopes her customers understand.

"People have to be flexible this year," she said, "because scented lei are going to be hard to come by."