Kanaloa was discovered in 1992 by the botanists Ken Wood and Steve Perlman of the National Tropical Botanical Garden on Kahoʻolawe, a small island that was formerly used as a bombing range.

[3] According to Lorence & Wood (1994), Kanaloa means, "secure, firm, immovable, established, unconquerable...Such attributes are certainly essential for this plant to have survived in spite of the severe degradation of the island".

[4] Soils are oxisols derived from basaltic lavas at an elevation of 45–60 m. It is possible that the range of this species previously included other Hawaiian islands; fossilized pollen from plants likely to be in the same genus has been found in core samples taken from sinkholes in Oʻahu's ʻEwa Plain,[6] Maui, and Kauaʻi's Makauwahi Cave.

On the other hand, it may also be that the Oʻahu population remains represent another, extinct, species - possibly an ancestor of K. kahoolawensis -, judging from the biogeography of Hawaiian land plants.

Fruits stipitate, stipe 4–5 mm long, as many as 4 per capitulum, inertly dehiscent along both margins, obovate or subcircular, 2.4-3.2 x 2-2.3 cm.

[11] Shared features include: lack of spines or prickles, presence of sessile petiolar glands, petals free to the base, and inflorescence a capitulum.

Kanaloa differs from Schleinitzia in lacking glands at the apex of the anthers and having simple rather than compound pollen grains.

Kanaloa is most closely related to Desmanthus, sharing peltate floral bracts and inertly dehiscent fruits.