[ { "slug": "kalo", "nameHaw": "Kalo", "pronunciation": "KAH-loh", "nameCommon": "Taro", "nameSci": "Colocasia esculenta", "family": "Araceae", "originRegion": "Southeast Asia and Near Oceania", "originMapKey": "sea", "carriedAs": "Huli, the cut top of the plant with a slice of corm", "hook": "The elder sibling of the Hawaiian people", "whyInCanoe": "Kalo was the most important food plant the voyagers carried. It is replanted from huli, the cut top of the plant, so it could travel alive and go straight into wet ground on a new island. Scientists think the first settlers brought only a few kinds, and Hawaiian farmers bred the rest over hundreds of years.", "uses": [ { "part": "root", "text": "The corm was steamed in an imu, then pounded with water into poi, the everyday food of old Hawaiʻi." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "The leaves, called lūʻau, were cooked as greens rich in vitamins and calcium." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "The cut end of a leaf stalk was pressed on a wound to stop the bleeding." }, { "part": "root", "text": "Healers mixed scrapings of raw corm with kō juice and other plants to make medicines." }, { "part": "sap", "text": "The sap of certain purple kinds of kalo gave a red dye for kapa." }, { "part": "root", "text": "Sticky poi worked as glue for joining pieces of kapa." }, { "part": "root", "text": "Cooked kalo was used as bait for ʻōpelu fishing." }, { "part": "root", "text": "Special kinds of kalo were offered to the gods in ceremonies." } ], "useTags": [ "food", "medicine", "ceremony", "light-dye" ], "partTags": [ "root", "leaf", "stem", "sap" ], "facts": [ { "text": "The word ʻohana, family, comes from ʻohā, the baby shoots that sprout from the side of the parent corm. A family grows the way kalo does.", "source": "cho-2007" }, { "text": "Raw kalo stings your mouth and throat. The plant is full of tiny calcium oxalate crystals, so every part has to be cooked well before anyone eats it.", "source": "ctahr-pacific-food-guide" }, { "text": "Hawaiians may have had more than 300 names for kinds of kalo, though about half were probably second names for the same plant. When University of Hawaiʻi scientists gathered them up between 1928 and 1935, they found 84 different kinds, and 69 of those were Hawaiian.", "source": "cho-2007" }, { "text": "Saving those varieties has been hard. By 1992 only 70 of the 84 were left in the collection on Kauaʻi, and after Hurricane Iniki wild pigs got in and ate 10 more.", "source": "cho-2007" }, { "text": "By tradition, when the poi bowl is open nobody argues or talks business at the table. Bishop Museum explains that this was so Hāloa, the kalo, would not be offended.", "source": "bishop-hawaii-alive" }, { "text": "Kalo is one of the oldest crops on Earth. Scientists found its starch on stone tools in the Solomon Islands that are about 28,000 years old.", "source": "cho-2007" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "Hāloa, the first kalo", "text": "In Hawaiian tradition, Wākea, the sky father, and Hoʻohōkūkalani had a first child who was stillborn. The baby was named Hāloanakalaukapalili. He was buried in the earth, and his mother watered the spot with her tears. From that place grew the first kalo plant.\n\nTheir second child was a healthy boy. He was named Hāloa after his older brother, and tradition says the Hawaiian people descend from him. So kalo is the elder sibling. The younger sibling cares for the kalo, and the kalo feeds the family in return. Kalo is also honored as a kinolau, a body form, of the god Kāne.", "kinolau": "Kāne" }, "today": "You can buy poi at almost any grocery store in Hawaiʻi, and kalo shows up as chips, bread and laulau greens. Still, farmers planted fewer than 400 acres in 2007, compared with more than 20,000 acres at the peak of old Hawaiʻi. About two thirds of the crop comes from Hanalei on Kauaʻi. Kalo starch has very tiny grains, which makes poi one of the easiest foods to digest.", "grow": { "sun": "Full sun. It grows fastest when planted from April to September.", "water": "Lots of water. Keep the soil wet all the time, or grow it in a flooded loʻi.", "planting": "Plant huli, the leaf stalks with a slice of corm attached, 1 to 2 feet apart.", "harvest": "About 8 to 12 months. Save the huli and the ʻohā to replant." }, "related": [ { "slug": "ape", "why": "Its giant cousin, with the same burning crystals, eaten only when kalo failed." }, { "slug": "uala", "why": "The dry land crop that fed the leeward slopes where kalo would not grow." }, { "slug": "ki", "why": "Its leaves wrapped kalo and other food for the imu." } ], "images": [ { "file": "kalo-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/kalo/kalo-01", "alt": "A wide field of kalo with big heart shaped leaves grows in shallow water, with palms and cloudy green mountains behind it in Hanalei, Kauaʻi.", "creditId": "c-kalo-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "kalo-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/kalo/kalo-02", "alt": "Freshly pulled kalo plants lie stacked on a bed of leaves beside a flooded loʻi, their brown corms still attached to the stems.", "creditId": "c-kalo-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "kalo-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/kalo/kalo-03", "alt": "An old black and white photo of a Hawaiian man sitting in front of tall kalo plants and pounding cooked kalo into poi on a wooden board, with two children beside him.", "creditId": "c-kalo-03", "role": "culture", "w": 1600, "h": 1046 }, { "file": "kalo-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/kalo/kalo-04", "alt": "Seen from above, a patchwork of flooded loʻi kalo covers the floor of Hanalei Valley, some ponds green with plants and some shining with open water.", "creditId": "c-kalo-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 } ], "sources": [ "cho-2007", "bishop-ethnobotany", "bishop-hawaii-alive", "ctahr-pacific-food-guide", "ulu-coop-kalo-culture", "ulu-coop-upland-kalo", "kawaihapai-haloa", "pvs-ohana", "handy-handy-1972" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "uala", "nameHaw": "ʻUala", "pronunciation": "oo-AH-lah", "nameCommon": "Sweet potato", "nameSci": "Ipomoea batatas", "family": "Convolvulaceae", "originRegion": "South America", "originMapKey": "southamerica", "carriedAs": "Tubers, or cut vine tips kept damp", "hook": "The potato that crossed from South America", "whyInCanoe": "ʻUala grows fast in dry, rocky places where kalo cannot live. That let people farm the sunny leeward sides of the islands. A Hawaiian proverb says it all. He ʻuala ka ʻai hoʻōla koke i ka wī, the sweet potato is the food that quickly ends a famine.", "uses": [ { "part": "root", "text": "The tubers were baked in the imu and eaten every day, and could be mashed into a soft poi." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "Young leaves and shoot tips, called palula, were cooked and eaten as greens." }, { "part": "root", "text": "Healers mixed the tuber with kī leaves and water in a medicine for clearing phlegm." }, { "part": "root", "text": "ʻUala was the main ingredient in ʻapu, a drink made for women to help them heal after childbirth." }, { "part": "root", "text": "Pieces of tuber were used as fishing bait." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "The long vines were laid down as a soft cushion under lauhala mats." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "Leftover vines and leaves make good food for pigs." } ], "useTags": [ "food", "medicine" ], "partTags": [ "root", "leaf", "stem" ], "facts": [ { "text": "Sweet potato is from South America, yet Polynesians were growing it long before any European ship reached the Pacific. Its old Polynesian name, kuumala, matches kumara and cumal, words for the plant used by Quechua speakers in South America.", "source": "roullier-2013" }, { "text": "In 2013 scientists tested DNA from dried sweet potato plants collected on the first voyage of Captain Cook in 1769. The results backed the idea that Polynesian voyagers sailed to South America and brought the plant home around 1000 to 1100 CE.", "source": "roullier-2013" }, { "text": "Not everyone agrees. A 2018 study argued that sweet potato is so ancient it could have drifted to Polynesia on its own, as seeds carried by birds, wind or currents, long before people arrived.", "source": "munoz-rodriguez-2018" }, { "text": "Then in 2020 a study of human DNA found that some eastern Polynesians have Native American ancestors from a meeting around 1200 CE. So the voyagers and the people of South America really did meet.", "source": "ioannidis-2020" }, { "text": "On the dry slopes of Kohala on Hawaiʻi Island, farmers built a field system covering more than 60 square kilometers. It ran on rain alone, and ʻuala was its main crop.", "source": "marshall-2017" }, { "text": "Hawaiian farmers developed more than 240 kinds of ʻuala. Only about 24 Hawaiian varieties are left today.", "source": "kawaiola-hughes-2020" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "The food of Lono", "text": "In Hawaiian tradition, ʻuala belongs to Lono, the god of rain and farming. One tradition says Lono came to Hawaiʻi after the other great gods and brought ʻuala with him, along with the ipu and the pig. ʻUala is counted as one of his kinolau, his body forms.\n\nTradition also names Kamapuaʻa, the pig god, and Kānepuaʻa as guardians of the ʻuala patch. Kamapuaʻa is himself called a form of Lono.", "kinolau": "Lono" }, "today": "The purple Okinawan sweet potato is now the most popular kind grown on Hawaiʻi farms, and you will find it in plate lunches, pies and chips. At Puanui in Kohala, a community group has been bringing part of the old field system back to life, and thousands of students have visited to plant and learn. Gardens such as the National Tropical Botanical Garden keep the rare Hawaiian varieties growing.", "grow": { "sun": "At least 6 hours of direct sun a day.", "water": "Much less than kalo. It can make a crop on 20 to 50 inches of rain.", "planting": "Cut vine tips 7 to 8 inches long and plant them 10 to 12 inches apart in mounds called puʻe.", "harvest": "About 4 to 6 months after planting." }, "related": [ { "slug": "kalo", "why": "The wetland staple that ʻuala backed up in dry, rocky places." }, { "slug": "uhi", "why": "The other tuber that kept for months at sea." }, { "slug": "ipu", "why": "Another canoe plant whose DNA hints at contact with the Americas." } ], "images": [ { "file": "uala-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/uala/uala-01", "alt": "ʻUala vines with heart shaped leaves spread over a low mound of red soil ringed with lava rocks on the dry island of Kahoʻolawe.", "creditId": "c-uala-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "uala-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/uala/uala-02", "alt": "Pink skinned sweet potato tubers sit half dug out of dark soil, still joined to the base of the vine that grew them.", "creditId": "c-uala-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "uala-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/uala/uala-03", "alt": "Five knobby brown tubers of reka rawa, a sweet potato variety Māori growers kept from before Europeans arrived, rest on a table with soil still on them.", "creditId": "c-uala-03", "role": "culture", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "uala-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/uala/uala-04", "alt": "Pale trumpet shaped ʻuala flowers with deep purple throats open among pointed green leaves.", "creditId": "c-uala-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 } ], "sources": [ "roullier-2013", "denham-2013", "calacademy-2013", "munoz-rodriguez-2018", "ioannidis-2020", "smithsonian-ssec-2020", "marshall-2017", "kawaiola-hughes-2020", "ntbg-uala", "ulu-coop-uala", "kumukahi-lono", "bishop-ethnobotany" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "ulu", "nameHaw": "ʻUlu", "pronunciation": "OO-loo", "nameCommon": "Breadfruit", "nameSci": "Artocarpus altilis", "family": "Moraceae", "originRegion": "New Guinea and Melanesia", "originMapKey": "newguinea", "carriedAs": "Living root shoots. The fruit has no seeds", "hook": "A seedless tree carried as cuttings", "whyInCanoe": "One ʻulu tree can feed a family for many decades with almost no work. But Polynesian ʻulu has no seeds, so voyagers had to dig up living root shoots and keep them alive across the open ocean. Along with food, the tree gave them wood, glue and cloth.", "uses": [ { "part": "fruit", "text": "The starchy fruit was baked in the imu and eaten, or pounded into poi ʻulu." }, { "part": "wood", "text": "The light wood was carved into pahu drums, surfboards, poi pounding boards and canoe parts." }, { "part": "sap", "text": "The sticky white sap sealed the seams of canoes." }, { "part": "sap", "text": "Bird catchers smeared the sap on branches to trap birds for their feathers." }, { "part": "sap", "text": "The sap was the glue that joined two gourds into an ipu heke, the hula drum." }, { "part": "bark", "text": "The inner bark could be beaten into a rough kind of kapa." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "The rough leaves were used like sandpaper and were placed on hula altars." }, { "part": "flower", "text": "The male flowers gave a yellow brown dye." } ], "useTags": [ "food", "wood-tools", "cloth-cordage", "light-dye" ], "partTags": [ "fruit", "wood", "sap", "bark", "leaf", "flower" ], "facts": [ { "text": "You cannot plant Polynesian ʻulu from a seed because the fruit has none. Every tree is grown from a shoot that sprouts off the roots of an older tree, which is how voyagers carried it from island to island.", "source": "ragone-2006" }, { "text": "An average tree gives 150 to 200 fruits a year, and some give more than 700. A single fruit can weigh up to 13 pounds.", "source": "ragone-2006" }, { "text": "The famous mutiny on the Bounty in 1789 happened on a trip to carry breadfruit from Tahiti to the Caribbean. Captain Bligh went back on another ship and delivered the trees in 1793, and DNA shows that Caribbean breadfruit still descends from them.", "source": "northwestern-2023" }, { "text": "The biggest breadfruit collection in the world is in Hawaiʻi. The National Tropical Botanical Garden cares for about 150 varieties from 34 Pacific islands, mostly at Kahanu Garden on Maui.", "source": "ntbg-breadfruit" }, { "text": "Above the Kona coast there was once a band of ʻulu trees called the kaluʻulu. It is said to have covered about 10 square miles, and one estimate is that it gave 33 million pounds of food a year.", "source": "ulu-coop-ulu-history" }, { "text": "The first disks for ʻulu maika, a Hawaiian rolling game, were slices cut from young breadfruit. Stone disks came later and kept the name.", "source": "bishop-ethnobotany" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "The gift of Kū", "text": "In Hawaiian tradition, the god Kū once lived as a man. He married a woman of Hawaiʻi, farmed the land and raised a family. Then a terrible famine came. Kū told his wife he could feed the children, but only by leaving them. He sank into the ground and was gone. She wept over the spot, and from it a green shoot rose. It grew into the first ʻulu tree, heavy with fruit.\n\nThe story says that when neighbors tried to grab the fruit for themselves, the tree pulled back into the earth. So the family dug up the small shoots around the trunk and gave one to every household. That is how ʻulu spread, as a gift meant to be shared. ʻUlu is a kinolau, a body form, of Kū.", "kinolau": "Kū" }, "today": "ʻUlu is making a comeback. Farmers in the Hawaiʻi ʻUlu Cooperative grow it for school lunches, stores and restaurants, and it is sold as chips and other foods. In Kona, growers are replanting part of the old kaluʻulu. Growers say 1 or 2 full grown trees can supply all the starch one adult needs.", "grow": { "sun": "Full sun for big trees. Young trees like a little shade.", "water": "Water often until it is settled in. Older trees handle a few dry months but need soil that drains well.", "planting": "Start from a root shoot or a piece of root raised in a pot, and give the tree about 40 feet of room.", "harvest": "First fruit in 3 to 5 years. The main crop comes in summer, then the tree gives for decades." }, "related": [ { "slug": "ohia-ai", "why": "Sailed to the Caribbean on the same voyage with Captain Bligh in 1793." }, { "slug": "kalo", "why": "The other great starch of old Hawaiʻi." }, { "slug": "hau", "why": "Light hau wood for the outrigger, sticky ʻulu sap to seal the seams." } ], "images": [ { "file": "ulu-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ulu/ulu-01", "alt": "A dirt track runs through a shady grove of ʻulu trees with dark trunks and huge deeply cut glossy leaves at Kahanu Garden in Hāna, Maui.", "creditId": "c-ulu-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "ulu-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ulu/ulu-02", "alt": "Round green ʻulu fruits with bumpy skin hang in pairs among big glossy lobed leaves.", "creditId": "c-ulu-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "ulu-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ulu/ulu-03", "alt": "A hand colored print from 1796 shows Tahitians and British sailors loading young breadfruit trees in pots into a boat, the mission tied to the mutiny on the Bounty.", "creditId": "c-ulu-03", "role": "culture", "w": 1600, "h": 1305 }, { "file": "ulu-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ulu/ulu-04", "alt": "A row of tall ʻulu trees with rounded crowns of large leaves stands at the edge of a bright green lawn.", "creditId": "c-ulu-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 } ], "sources": [ "ragone-2006", "ntbg-breadfruit", "northwestern-2023", "ulu-coop-ulu-history", "ulu-coop-ku-story", "ulu-coop-ulu-primer", "duff-2021", "pvs-canoe-plants", "bishop-ethnobotany" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "niu", "nameHaw": "Niu", "pronunciation": "NEE-oo", "nameCommon": "Coconut", "nameSci": "Cocos nucifera", "family": "Arecaceae", "originRegion": "Indo Pacific", "originMapKey": "indopacific", "carriedAs": "Sprouting nuts", "hook": "The rope that held canoes together", "whyInCanoe": "A coconut is a sealed jar of clean water and rich food, perfect for a long voyage. Once planted, the palm gave rope, cups, thatch, oil and drums. Coconuts can float to new islands by themselves, but voyagers did not leave it to luck. They packed their best kinds.", "uses": [ { "part": "fruit", "text": "Fiber from the husk was twisted and braided into ʻaha, the strong cord that lashed canoes, houses and tools together." }, { "part": "seed", "text": "The white meat was eaten with poi and went into sweets like kūlolo and haupia." }, { "part": "seed", "text": "The water inside a young nut was a clean, safe drink." }, { "part": "seed", "text": "Oil from the meat was rubbed on skin and hair, and the meat, oil and water all went into medicines." }, { "part": "seed", "text": "The hard shells became ʻawa cups, bowls, spoons and the small knee drum called the pūniu." }, { "part": "wood", "text": "Trunks were hollowed into pahu, the tall drums of hula, and cut for house posts and small canoes." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "The leaves were woven into baskets, fans and thatch." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "The stiff rib of a leaflet was the skewer that held a string of burning kukui nuts." } ], "useTags": [ "food", "cloth-cordage", "wood-tools", "medicine", "ceremony" ], "partTags": [ "fruit", "seed", "wood", "leaf" ], "facts": [ { "text": "Old voyaging canoes had no nails at all. Every part was tied together with ʻaha, cord made from coconut husk fiber.", "source": "pvs-canoe-plants" }, { "text": "A coconut can ride ocean currents for a long way and still sprout when it washes ashore. The thick husk is light and full of air, like a built in life jacket.", "source": "ntbg-cocos" }, { "text": "Look at the end of a husked coconut and you will see three eyes. When the seed wakes up, the sprout pushes out through just one of them.", "source": "ntbg-cocos" }, { "text": "Under the old ʻai kapu, the rules about sacred eating, women were forbidden to eat coconut. That ended in 1819, when Kamehameha II sat down and ate with the women of his court.", "source": "hawaii-sea-grant-limu" }, { "text": "Coconut DNA shows that people tamed the palm twice, once in the islands of Southeast Asia and once near India. The Pacific kind traveled with ocean voyagers as far as Madagascar.", "source": "gunn-2011" }, { "text": "Hawaiians kept two main kinds of niu. Niu hiwa, with a dark green husk and black shell, was for ceremony, medicine and cooking. Niu lelo, with a reddish yellow husk, was for everyday use.", "source": "bishop-ethnobotany" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "Niuolahiki, the coconut that reached Kahiki", "text": "In Hawaiian tradition there is an ancestor named Niuolahiki who could take the form of a coconut tree. The name is explained as the life giving coconut of Kahiki, or the far traveling coconut. In one story a boy in Hawaiʻi longs to reach family in Kahiki, the far off homeland across the sea.\n\nHis elders call on Niuolahiki with a chant. A coconut sprouts, and the boy climbs up and holds on tight. As the chant goes on, the tree grows and stretches out over the ocean until its crown bends down and sets him gently on the shore of Kahiki. Niu is also known as a kinolau, a body form, of the god Kū.", "kinolau": "Kū" }, "today": "Niu still means Hawaiʻi to people all over the world. Coconut water, coconut milk and haupia are everyday foods. The palms now face a serious pest, the coconut rhinoceros beetle, which bores into the crown and can kill the tree. Community groups are working to protect niu and to plant more of it as a food tree again.", "grow": { "sun": "Full sun all day.", "water": "About an inch of water a week for the first year.", "planting": "Lay a sprouting nut on its side and bury it, leaving the top third showing. Keep it away from paths, because nuts fall.", "harvest": "Flowers come after 4 to 6 years, and each nut takes about a year to ripen." }, "related": [ { "slug": "hau", "why": "The other rope plant. Hau bark for quick cord, coconut husk for ʻaha." }, { "slug": "pia", "why": "Coconut cream and pia starch together made haupia." }, { "slug": "kamani", "why": "Another shoreline tree whose seeds float across the sea." } ], "images": [ { "file": "niu-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/niu/niu-01", "alt": "A single niu palm with a cluster of coconuts leans over turquoise water and black lava rock on the coast at Waiʻānapanapa, Maui.", "creditId": "c-niu-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "niu-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/niu/niu-02", "alt": "A fallen brown coconut lies on coral gravel with a bright green shoot pushing out of its husk, next to the base of a palm trunk.", "creditId": "c-niu-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "niu-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/niu/niu-03", "alt": "A thick roll of brown rope twisted from coconut husk fiber sits in a museum case, the same kind of cord that lashed canoes and houses together.", "creditId": "c-niu-03", "role": "culture", "w": 1600, "h": 1098 }, { "file": "niu-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/niu/niu-04", "alt": "Looking up at a dozen tall niu palms with slender curved trunks against a blue sky with white clouds.", "creditId": "c-niu-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 } ], "sources": [ "bishop-ethnobotany", "pvs-canoe-plants", "ntbg-cocos", "hawaii-sea-grant-limu", "gunn-2011", "washu-2011", "aha-punana-leo-niuolahiki", "beckwith-1940", "uf-ifas-coconut", "ulu-coop-niu" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "maia", "nameHaw": "Maiʻa", "pronunciation": "MY-ah", "nameCommon": "Banana", "nameSci": "Musa species (Musa acuminata × balbisiana hybrids)", "family": "Musaceae", "originRegion": "Southeast Asia and New Guinea", "originMapKey": "newguinea", "carriedAs": "Young shoots and pieces of corm", "hook": "The giant herb that fruits once", "whyInCanoe": "Maiʻa gives sweet, filling food in about a year and then keeps going, because new shoots rise beside every old stalk. Most Hawaiian kinds were starchy bananas meant for cooking. The plants make no seeds, so voyagers carried living shoots and corms.", "uses": [ { "part": "fruit", "text": "The fruit was eaten ripe or cooked, and some kinds were steamed in the imu and pounded into a poi." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "The big leaves wrapped food for cooking and served as plates." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "Juicy chopped stalks lined the imu to make steam." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "Whole stalks were laid on the ground as rollers for moving heavy canoes." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "A banana stalk stood on the hula altar, and the plant was offered at heiau." }, { "part": "sap", "text": "The sap was used as a dye." }, { "part": "flower", "text": "Sweet nectar from the flowers was fed to babies." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "Dried leaves were burned, and the ash was eaten with poi to treat heartburn." } ], "useTags": [ "food", "ceremony", "medicine", "light-dye" ], "partTags": [ "fruit", "leaf", "stem", "sap", "flower" ], "facts": [ { "text": "A banana plant is not a tree. It is a giant herb, and its trunk is really a tight roll of leaf bases that can be 9 feet long.", "source": "huggins-1990" }, { "text": "Each stalk fruits just once. After the bunch is cut the stalk is finished, and a young shoot called a keiki takes over.", "source": "huggins-1990" }, { "text": "Under the old kapu, women were forbidden to eat most bananas. Bishop Museum lists only three kinds they were allowed, pōpōʻulu, iholena and kaualau.", "source": "bishop-ethnobotany" }, { "text": "By tradition bananas could bring bad luck. The Hawaiian dictionary says it was unlucky to dream of bananas, to meet a man carrying them, or to take them along in a fishing canoe.", "source": "wehewehe" }, { "text": "Pacific bananas make no seeds, so every plant is a copy of its parent. Scientists say these copies have been handed down from grower to grower for hundreds, even thousands, of years, starting near New Guinea.", "source": "kagy-2016" }, { "text": "Nobody is sure how many kinds Hawaiians once grew. One University of Hawaiʻi library guide says more than 70. Bishop Museum says nearly 20 are left, in three groups called maoli, pōpōʻulu and iholena.", "source": "bishop-ethnobotany" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "The plant of Kanaloa", "text": "In Hawaiian tradition, maiʻa is a kinolau, a body form, of Kanaloa, the god tied to the deep ocean. Because the plant was sacred to him, a set of kapu surrounded it. That is the reason tradition gives for why most kinds of banana were forbidden to women until the kapu ended in 1819.\n\nOld stories also tell of the gods Kāne and Kanaloa traveling through the islands together. One tradition says they lived for a time at Alakahi, high in Waipiʻo valley on Hawaiʻi Island, where they farmed bananas and lived a simple life.", "kinolau": "Kanaloa" }, "today": "Most bananas grown in Hawaiʻi now are newer arrivals like Cavendish and the Brazilian, which people here call apple banana. The old Hawaiian kinds are rare. Kahanu Garden on Maui keeps more than 30 varieties of maiʻa alive. A disease called banana bunchy top virus, first found on Oʻahu in 1989, is one big reason they need protecting.", "grow": { "sun": "Full sun, in a spot sheltered from strong wind.", "water": "Plenty. Bananas love rain, but the soil has to drain well.", "planting": "Plant a keiki, a young shoot cut from the base of a healthy plant, or a piece of corm.", "harvest": "About 11 to 15 months. Cut the old stalk down after harvest and let a keiki take its place." }, "related": [ { "slug": "niu", "why": "Also forbidden to women under the ʻai kapu until 1819." }, { "slug": "kalo", "why": "Both name their young shoots. Kalo has ʻohā, maiʻa has keiki." }, { "slug": "ki", "why": "Leaves that wrapped food, the way a banana leaf lines an imu." } ], "images": [ { "file": "maia-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/maia/maia-01", "alt": "A clump of maiʻa plants with broad wind torn leaves stands under a deep blue sky at Maui Nui Botanical Gardens, with a bunch of fruit hanging from one stem.", "creditId": "c-maia-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "maia-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/maia/maia-02", "alt": "A close view of a bunch of plump iholena bananas, green turning pale yellow, still on the plant.", "creditId": "c-maia-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "maia-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/maia/maia-03", "alt": "A festival table covered with a blue cloth holds ripe bunches and sliced samples of iholena and other banana varieties with handwritten labels.", "creditId": "c-maia-03", "role": "culture", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "maia-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/maia/maia-04", "alt": "A patch of tall iholena banana plants grows wild among grass and ferns in a sunlit valley in West Maui.", "creditId": "c-maia-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 } ], "sources": [ "bishop-ethnobotany", "huggins-1990", "wehewehe", "kagy-2016", "kcc-ahupuaa-food", "ntbg-maia", "beckwith-1940", "hawaii-sea-grant-limu" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "ko", "nameHaw": "Kō", "pronunciation": "KOH", "nameCommon": "Sugarcane", "nameSci": "Saccharum officinarum", "family": "Poaceae", "originRegion": "New Guinea", "originMapKey": "newguinea", "carriedAs": "Stalk cuttings with a few nodes", "hook": "The cane that cast love spells", "whyInCanoe": "Kō was the sweet in a world with no sugar bowl. Voyagers packed stalk cuttings because cane gave quick energy, made bitter medicine easier to swallow, and could keep a family going when other crops failed. On dry, windy slopes, rows of cane also sheltered other crops from the wind.", "uses": [ { "part": "stem", "text": "People chewed the raw stalk as a sweet snack, and in times of famine it was called a life saver." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "The juice sweetened bitter herbal medicines, and toasted cane juice was given to sick babies." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "Cane juice was mixed with soot from burned kukui nuts to make tattoo ink." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "Charcoal from burned cane made a black dye." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "Leaves were used for thatch and to line the inside walls of houses." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "Young leaf buds were mashed with salt and another plant and put on deep cuts." }, { "part": "flower", "text": "The long flower stalks became darts for games." } ], "useTags": [ "food", "medicine", "light-dye", "ceremony" ], "partTags": [ "stem", "leaf", "flower" ], "facts": [ { "text": "Sugarcane was first tamed in New Guinea about 8,000 years ago. A 2025 DNA study traced it back to a wild New Guinea grass. Every bag of sugar in the world starts with that Pacific plant.", "source": "garsmeur-2025" }, { "text": "Hawaiian farmers developed dozens of their own kō varieties over about 1,000 years. They came striped and solid, in greens, yellows, reds and deep purples.", "source": "lincoln-2020" }, { "text": "One striped variety is named manulele, which means flying bird. The Hawaiian Dictionary says it was used in medicine and in hana aloha, love magic.", "source": "wehewehe" }, { "text": "Kō was a calendar. A Hawaiian saying goes that when the sugarcane tassels, octopus season is here. That happens around late October and November.", "source": "bishop-ethnobotany" }, { "text": "When the cane tasseled it was also time for hōlua sledding. The slippery cane tops were spread on the course so the sleds would fly.", "source": "bishop-ethnobotany" }, { "text": "Tattoo ink had a secret ingredient. Soot from burned kukui nuts was mixed with kō juice, and the juice was also thought to help the skin heal.", "source": "ctahr-cane" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "Cane for the heart", "text": "In Hawaiian tradition, kō had power over love. In a practice called hana aloha, a kahuna chose a cane variety to match the wish. Manulele, the flying bird, was used to reach a love who was far away. Pilimai, whose name means come this way, was for a quick romance. The dark cane called pāpaʻa was for a bond meant to hold fast.\n\nTradition also had a cure. An old saying names laukona as the cane that breaks a love spell. Kō is also remembered as a kinolau, a body form, of the god Kāne. These are beliefs passed down in story and saying, not science.", "kinolau": "Kāne" }, "today": "For more than a century kō ran the economy of Hawaiʻi. The first successful sugar plantation started at Kōloa on Kauaʻi in 1835, and the last one, on Maui, hauled its final load of cane in December 2016. Now farmers and researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi are saving the old Hawaiian varieties. Some are pressed for fresh juice and even made into rum for adults.", "grow": { "sun": "Full sun. Low elevations are best.", "water": "Regular water and rich soil give the fattest, juiciest stalks.", "planting": "Lay a stalk piece 8 to 12 inches long, with a few nodes, sideways in a shallow trench and cover it.", "harvest": "Cut stalks at the base when they are thick and sweet. Full maturity can take up to 2 years, and the clump grows back." }, "related": [ { "slug": "kukui", "why": "Kō juice was mixed with kukui soot to make tattoo ink." }, { "slug": "ki", "why": "Cane tops on the hōlua course, ti leaves under the kids on the hill." }, { "slug": "olena", "why": "Another medicine plant. Kō made the bitter doses easier to swallow." } ], "images": [ { "file": "ko-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ko/ko-01", "alt": "A dense stand of tall green kō topped with feathery pinkish tassels stands under a bright blue sky with puffy clouds.", "creditId": "c-ko-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "ko-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ko/ko-02", "alt": "Two thick kō stalks of the variety Pākaweli show bold stripes of wine red, green, and yellow between pale waxy joints.", "creditId": "c-ko-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "ko-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ko/ko-03", "alt": "Cut kō stalks in green, striped, and deep purple are stacked together, each with its Hawaiian variety name written on it in white.", "creditId": "c-ko-03", "role": "culture", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "ko-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ko/ko-04", "alt": "A clump of Hawaiian kō with purple gray striped stalks and long arching green leaves grows in wood chip mulch at Maui Nui Botanical Gardens.", "creditId": "c-ko-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 } ], "sources": [ "bishop-ethnobotany", "wehewehe", "lincoln-2020", "ctahr-cane", "garsmeur-2025", "mcnarie-2012", "canoeplants-com", "old-sugar-mill-koloa", "mauinow-2016" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "awa", "nameHaw": "ʻAwa", "pronunciation": "AH-vah", "nameCommon": "Kava", "nameSci": "Piper methysticum", "family": "Piperaceae", "originRegion": "Vanuatu region", "originMapKey": "vanuatu", "carriedAs": "Stem cuttings. It never makes seeds", "hook": "A cutting of a cutting", "whyInCanoe": "ʻAwa was the drink of welcome, of prayer and of rest. No ceremony for the gods was complete without it, so leaving it behind was not an option. Because the plant makes no seeds, voyagers had to keep living stem cuttings alive all the way across the ocean.", "uses": [ { "part": "root", "text": "The root was chewed or pounded, mixed with water and strained to make a calming drink." }, { "part": "root", "text": "ʻAwa was offered to the gods. A kahuna poured it over a carved image or sprinkled it in the air." }, { "part": "root", "text": "Farmers and fishermen drank it to relax tired muscles after a hard day." }, { "part": "root", "text": "Healers used it for sleeplessness, chills and kidney trouble." }, { "part": "root", "text": "It was served to honor guests at feasts and important gatherings." } ], "useTags": [ "ceremony", "medicine" ], "partTags": [ "root" ], "facts": [ { "text": "ʻAwa cannot make seeds. No one has ever found a working ʻawa seed anywhere in the world. Every plant alive today was grown from a cutting by a human hand.", "source": "plant-pono" }, { "text": "Scientists who study kava think every kava plant in the Pacific may trace back to one ancestor plant in northern Vanuatu. It has been cloned from cuttings for perhaps 3,000 years.", "source": "johnston-rogers-2006" }, { "text": "Hawaiʻi has 13 ʻawa varieties found nowhere else. A 1999 DNA study found they are so alike that they probably all came from a single variety carried here by voyagers.", "source": "lebot-1999" }, { "text": "Not all ʻawa was for everyone. The varieties called mōʻī, hiwa and papa were saved for the gods and for ceremony. Common people used the most common kind.", "source": "titcomb-1948" }, { "text": "An old description sorts the drinkers this way. Chiefs drank ʻawa for pleasure, kahuna drank it for ceremony, and working people drank it to relax after labor.", "source": "titcomb-1948" }, { "text": "Before drinking, a person might dip a finger in the cup and flick a drop upward for the spirits. The idea was that the gods take the essence and people take the rest.", "source": "titcomb-1948" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "The gods who found water", "text": "In Hawaiian tradition, the gods Kāne and Kanaloa traveled the islands together and loved to drink ʻawa. But ʻawa must be mixed with fresh water. One story says they found good ʻawa root at Kalihi on Oʻahu and had no water to prepare it. Kāne struck the rock with his staff and a spring burst out.\n\nThe story says they did the same in Mānoa, where a clear pool called Ka Wai a ke Akua, the water of the god, appeared. Many springs across the islands are credited to the two ʻawa drinkers. ʻAwa is remembered as a kinolau, a body form, of Kāne.", "kinolau": "Kāne" }, "today": "ʻAwa is back. Hawaiʻi farms grow it, and kava bars serve it in Hawaiʻi and across the continent. It is a drink for adults, and health agencies warn that some kava products have been linked to rare cases of liver injury. It is still poured at ceremonies to honor guests and ancestors.", "grow": { "sun": "Part shade with shelter from wind. It likes to grow under taller plants.", "water": "Steady moisture and rich soil that drains well. It does not tolerate salt.", "planting": "Plant a piece of stem with a node or two. There are no seeds, ever.", "harvest": "Roots are dug after 2 to 3 years or more. In a school garden, grow it to study, not to drink." }, "related": [ { "slug": "ohe", "why": "Another kinolau, or body form, of the god Kāne." }, { "slug": "olena", "why": "Both had a place in ceremony and in cleansing." }, { "slug": "ki", "why": "Kī to bless, ʻawa to offer. Both belonged in ceremony." } ], "images": [ { "file": "awa-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/awa/awa-01", "alt": "A large ʻawa shrub with many thin stems fanning out from the base and big heart shaped leaves glows in the sunlight at Kahanu Garden, Maui.", "creditId": "c-awa-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "awa-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/awa/awa-02", "alt": "Close view of ʻawa stems, one bright green with dark speckles and others dark brown, showing the swollen joints where cuttings take root.", "creditId": "c-awa-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "awa-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/awa/awa-03", "alt": "Two hands squeeze a cloth bundle of pounded kava root over a large carved wooden bowl with legs, filling it with the cloudy brown drink.", "creditId": "c-awa-03", "role": "culture", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "awa-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/awa/awa-04", "alt": "Broad heart shaped ʻawa leaves with thin pale flower spikes standing upright between them.", "creditId": "c-awa-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 } ], "sources": [ "bishop-ethnobotany", "titcomb-1948", "johnston-rogers-2006", "lebot-1999", "plant-pono", "westervelt-1915", "kahoiwai-kane", "uh-paccrops-kava", "nccih-kava", "duff-2014", "canoeplants-com" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "kukui", "nameHaw": "Kukui", "pronunciation": "koo-KOO-ee", "nameCommon": "Candlenut", "nameSci": "Aleurites moluccanus", "family": "Euphorbiaceae", "originRegion": "Southeast Asia", "originMapKey": "sea", "carriedAs": "Nuts", "hook": "The tree that lit the night", "whyInCanoe": "Kukui was the light bulb of old Hawaiʻi. Its oily nuts burned as candles and lamp oil, and the same tree gave dye, medicine, relish, ink and light wood. One tree did so many jobs that a new island home was hard to imagine without it.", "uses": [ { "part": "seed", "text": "Shelled nuts were strung on a coconut leaf midrib and burned one after another as a candle." }, { "part": "seed", "text": "Oil pressed from the nuts burned in stone lamps and waterproofed kapa." }, { "part": "seed", "text": "Roasted nuts pounded with salt make ʻinamona, a relish." }, { "part": "seed", "text": "Soot from burned nuts made black ink for tattoos and paint for kapa and canoes." }, { "part": "seed", "text": "The hard shells were polished and strung into lei." }, { "part": "bark", "text": "The inner bark gave a reddish brown dye for kapa and cordage." }, { "part": "wood", "text": "The light wood was used for fishing floats and small canoes." }, { "part": "flower", "text": "The white flowers were used in a medicine for mouth sores in children." } ], "useTags": [ "light-dye", "food", "medicine", "wood-tools" ], "partTags": [ "seed", "bark", "wood", "flower" ], "facts": [ { "text": "A kukui candle was 10 or 12 nuts on a stick. A visitor in the 1820s wrote that each nut burned two or three minutes and then lit the one below it. Keeping the candle going was often a job for children. Some modern writers give longer burn times.", "source": "images-old-hawaii-kukui" }, { "text": "Fishermen chewed kukui nuts and spat the oily bits onto the sea. The thin film of oil calmed the ripples so they could see down into the water.", "source": "canoeplants-com" }, { "text": "Hawaiian tattoo ink came from this tree. People burned the nuts, collected the black soot and mixed it into ink.", "source": "bishop-ethnobotany" }, { "text": "Roasted kukui is food. Raw kukui is a strong laxative that healers used on purpose. Do not try it.", "source": "bishop-ethnobotany" }, { "text": "Kukui became the official tree of Hawaiʻi in 1959. The word kukui also means lamp, light or torch, so the tree stands for knowledge too.", "source": "hrs-5-8" }, { "text": "You can spot kukui from far away. A silvery powder on the leaves makes the groves look like pale green patches on a dark hillside.", "source": "bishop-ethnobotany" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "The pig god and the grove of the prophet", "text": "In Hawaiian tradition, kukui is a kinolau, a body form, of Kamapuaʻa, the pig god. Some people see the face of a pig in the shape of the leaf. During the Makahiki season, the head of a pig, carved from kukui wood, was placed on the altar of the god Lono. Sources do not fully agree here. The Bishop Museum plant database lists kukui as a kinolau of Lono.\n\nOn Molokaʻi, tradition remembers Lanikāula, the most famous kahuna of the island. His kukui grove, ʻUlukukui o Lanikāula, still stands at the east end of Molokaʻi and is treated as a sacred place.", "kinolau": "Kamapuaʻa" }, "today": "Kukui is the state tree, and its silvery groves fill valleys on every main island. Polished kukui nut lei are given at graduations and celebrations. ʻInamona still seasons poke, and kukui oil is sold in lotions and soaps.", "grow": { "sun": "Full sun. Give it lots of room because it becomes a big shade tree.", "water": "Water while it is young. Once it is settled it handles dry spells, wind and salt spray.", "planting": "Gently crack the hard shell, soak the nut overnight and plant it. Sprouting can take up to 5 months.", "harvest": "Ripe nuts drop on their own. Gather them from the ground." }, "related": [ { "slug": "ko", "why": "Its soot and kō juice made the ink for tattoos." }, { "slug": "kamani", "why": "The other nut pressed for lamp oil." }, { "slug": "niu", "why": "Kukui nuts were strung on a coconut leaf midrib to burn as a candle." } ], "images": [ { "file": "kukui-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/kukui/kukui-01", "alt": "Two kukui trees with pale silvery green crowns frame a view of dry golden grass and the cloud capped West Maui Mountains.", "creditId": "c-kukui-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "kukui-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/kukui/kukui-02", "alt": "Three round pale green kukui fruits, each about the size of a golf ball, hang from a branch among maple shaped leaves.", "creditId": "c-kukui-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "kukui-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/kukui/kukui-03", "alt": "Steep green ridges and gulches in West Maui are dotted with the pale, almost white crowns of kukui trees that stand out from the darker forest.", "creditId": "c-kukui-03", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 } ], "sources": [ "bishop-ethnobotany", "images-old-hawaii-kukui", "canoeplants-com", "hrs-5-8", "plant-pono", "maui-magazine-kukui", "kawaiola-2021", "ctahr-cane" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "noni", "nameHaw": "Noni", "pronunciation": "NOH-nee", "nameCommon": "Indian mulberry", "nameSci": "Morinda citrifolia", "family": "Rubiaceae", "originRegion": "Southeast Asia and Australia", "originMapKey": "sea", "carriedAs": "Seeds or stem cuttings", "hook": "Smells like cheese, used like medicine", "whyInCanoe": "Noni was a medicine chest and a dye pot in one small tree. It grows fast, fruits all year and shrugs off salt and drought, so it was a safe bet for an unknown shore. When food ran short, the smelly fruit could be eaten too.", "uses": [ { "part": "fruit", "text": "Green fruit was mashed with salt and put on deep cuts and broken bones." }, { "part": "fruit", "text": "The fruit was eaten raw or cooked when other food was scarce." }, { "part": "fruit", "text": "Oil from the fruit was rubbed into hair." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "Leaves were mashed or heated and laid on boils, bruises, sores and wounds." }, { "part": "bark", "text": "Bark from the stem was used on cuts." }, { "part": "root", "text": "The inner bark of the roots and trunk gave a yellow dye for kapa, and adding lime turned it red." } ], "useTags": [ "medicine", "light-dye", "food" ], "partTags": [ "fruit", "leaf", "bark", "root" ], "facts": [ { "text": "Ripe noni stinks. People compare the smell to strong blue cheese, and botanists politely call the fruit foetid. Hawaiians used it anyway.", "source": "ctahr-noni" }, { "text": "One plant, two colors. Noni roots and bark make a yellow dye. Mix in lime and the same dye turns red.", "source": "bishop-ethnobotany" }, { "text": "Noni is in a hurry. A plant can start making fruit 9 months to a year after planting, and then it fruits all year long.", "source": "ctahr-noni" }, { "text": "A healthy grown noni plant can give up to 500 pounds of fruit in a year.", "source": "ctahr-noni" }, { "text": "Noni juice is sold around the world with big health claims. The United States government health institutes say noni has not been shown to help any health condition in studies of people.", "source": "nccih-noni" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "A saying about shallow roots", "text": "Hawaiian tradition keeps wisdom in short sayings called ʻōlelo noʻeau. One of them is about noni. It says a person is like a noni tree of Kaualehu whose roots are in shallow ground.\n\nThe saying describes someone whose knowledge is shallow. Dyers knew that noni roots from shallow soil made a weaker dye than roots from deep soil. So the lesson is to dig deep. A Hawaiian song about Moanalua also mentions the noni fruit.", "kinolau": "" }, "today": "Noni grows wild along Hawaiʻi coasts and even on rough lava land. Farms in Hawaiʻi grow it for juice that is shipped around the world. Many families still use the leaves and fruit as home remedies, while doctors warn that the juice is high in potassium and is not safe for everyone.", "grow": { "sun": "Full or partial sun. It handles salt air well.", "water": "Water young plants about once a week. Grown plants survive long dry spells.", "planting": "Stem cuttings root in 1 to 2 months. Seeds work too but can take 6 to 12 months to sprout.", "harvest": "First fruit comes 9 months to a year after planting. Pick when the fruit turns hard and white." }, "related": [ { "slug": "olena", "why": "Two dye plants. ʻŌlena for yellow, noni for yellow and red." }, { "slug": "wauke", "why": "Noni dyed the kapa that wauke made." }, { "slug": "awapuhi", "why": "Another plant still used as a home remedy today." } ], "images": [ { "file": "noni-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/noni/noni-01", "alt": "A noni shrub with large shiny leaves and knobby pale green fruits grows on a sea cliff, with blue ocean and black lava coast behind it.", "creditId": "c-noni-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "noni-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/noni/noni-02", "alt": "A lumpy green noni fruit covered in small brown eyes hangs under big veined leaves, next to a young fruit head with tiny white flowers.", "creditId": "c-noni-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "noni-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/noni/noni-03", "alt": "A dark bowl holds soft whitish ripe noni fruits and a glass jar of brown noni juice.", "creditId": "c-noni-03", "role": "culture", "w": 1600, "h": 1067 }, { "file": "noni-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/noni/noni-04", "alt": "A single small noni tree with dark green leaves grows out of bare black lava rock under a blue sky at La Pérouse Bay, Maui.", "creditId": "c-noni-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1198 } ], "sources": [ "bishop-ethnobotany", "ctahr-noni", "nccih-noni", "canoeplants-com" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "wauke", "nameHaw": "Wauke", "pronunciation": "WOW-keh", "nameCommon": "Paper mulberry", "nameSci": "Broussonetia papyrifera", "family": "Moraceae", "originRegion": "Taiwan and East Asia", "originMapKey": "taiwan", "carriedAs": "Root shoots and cuttings", "hook": "The tree that became cloth", "whyInCanoe": "There was no cotton, wool or loom in old Polynesia. Cloth came from the inner bark of wauke, beaten into kapa. Without this plant there would be no clothing, no blankets and no wrapping for sacred things, so root shoots of wauke made the trip.", "uses": [ { "part": "bark", "text": "The inner bark was soaked and beaten into kapa for malo, pāʻū, kīhei and blankets." }, { "part": "bark", "text": "Kapa wrapped the dead and hung as banners at temples." }, { "part": "bark", "text": "Kapa was also made into lamp wicks, kite parts and bandages." }, { "part": "bark", "text": "Raw bark was twisted into cordage for fishing nets and carrying nets." }, { "part": "bark", "text": "Ash from burned kapa was a medicine for thrush, a mouth sickness in children." }, { "part": "sap", "text": "The slimy sap was taken as a mild laxative." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "Young shoots were eaten as part of a treatment for certain illnesses." } ], "useTags": [ "cloth-cordage", "medicine", "ceremony" ], "partTags": [ "bark", "sap", "stem" ], "facts": [ { "text": "Wauke is a clue to where Polynesians came from. A 2015 study tested the DNA of paper mulberry across the Pacific and traced the common Pacific type back to Taiwan.", "source": "chang-2015" }, { "text": "Across the far Pacific islands, every paper mulberry plant tested was female. Hawaiʻi was the one exception, with both male and female plants. The stems were cut for bark before they could flower, so the plant spread only when people carried root shoots and cuttings.", "source": "penailillo-2016" }, { "text": "Hawaiian kapa has a hidden signature. Beaters carved with fine patterns pressed a watermark into the cloth. Hold the kapa up to the light and the design appears.", "source": "halekulani-kapa" }, { "text": "Kapa makers farmed for smooth bark. They cut off side branches while the plant grew so the stalk came up straight, with no branch holes to tear the cloth.", "source": "canoeplants-com" }, { "text": "Kapa was not only clothing. It became lamp wicks, kite parts, bandages, temple banners and the wrapping for burials.", "source": "bishop-ethnobotany" }, { "text": "Kapa making nearly vanished in Hawaiʻi. Beginning with the Hawaiian Renaissance of the 1970s, artists studied old pieces and tools and brought the craft back.", "source": "halekulani-kapa" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "Maikohā and his daughters", "text": "In a Hawaiian tradition from Nuʻuanu Valley on Oʻahu, a man named Maikohā grew weak from the cold valley winds. Before he died he told his daughters to bury him beside the stream. A tree would grow from that spot, he said, and it would be kapa for them.\n\nThe wauke tree grew from his grave. His daughter Lauhuiki learned to pound its bark into cloth. His daughter Laʻahana learned to mark the beaters with patterns. In the story, Maikohā became the ancestor god of kapa makers, and his daughters became the guardians of those who beat and decorate kapa. Another version of the story places his grave at Kaupō on Maui. Wauke is also listed as a kinolau, a body form, of the god Kāne.", "kinolau": "Kāne" }, "today": "A small but growing group of kapa makers grow their own wauke and beat cloth by hand, using carved beaters and plant dyes. Their kapa is worn in hula, shown in museums and used in ceremonies. The Bishop Museum keeps historic Hawaiian kapa that artists still study.", "grow": { "sun": "Full sun to part sun, out of strong wind.", "water": "Plenty of water and soil that drains well. It loves stream banks and ʻauwai edges.", "planting": "Dig up a root sucker and replant it. Give it a bed of its own, because suckers spread and are hard to dig out.", "harvest": "Snap off side shoots as it grows. Cut straight stalks at about 8 feet tall, usually within 2 years." }, "related": [ { "slug": "ohe", "why": "Carved bamboo stamps printed the patterns on wauke kapa." }, { "slug": "noni", "why": "Dye for the finished cloth." }, { "slug": "awapuhi", "why": "Its powdered rhizome scented the folded kapa." } ], "images": [ { "file": "wauke-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/wauke/wauke-01", "alt": "Big, soft green wauke leaves, some with deep lobes and some heart shaped, spread out from a young stem on Maui.", "creditId": "c-wauke-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "wauke-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/wauke/wauke-02", "alt": "A hand holds a carved wooden beater over a strip of pale wauke inner bark that is being pounded flat into kapa.", "creditId": "c-wauke-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "wauke-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/wauke/wauke-03", "alt": "Sheets of finished kapa printed with black and brown geometric patterns are draped over a table at a cultural festival.", "creditId": "c-wauke-03", "role": "culture", "w": 1600, "h": 1067 }, { "file": "wauke-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/wauke/wauke-04", "alt": "Five four sided wooden kapa beaters, each carved with a different pattern, rest against a long wooden anvil.", "creditId": "c-wauke-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1293 } ], "sources": [ "bishop-ethnobotany", "chang-2015", "penailillo-2016", "halekulani-kapa", "canoeplants-com", "westervelt-1915", "alameida-1997", "plant-pono", "kahoiwai-kane", "images-old-hawaii-wauke" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "ohe", "nameHaw": "ʻOhe", "pronunciation": "OH-heh", "nameCommon": "Polynesian bamboo", "nameSci": "Schizostachyum glaucifolium", "family": "Poaceae", "originRegion": "Melanesia and Polynesia", "originMapKey": "newguinea", "carriedAs": "Pieces of the rooted clump", "hook": "The flute you play with your nose", "whyInCanoe": "A clump of ʻohe is a whole tool shed growing in one spot. One plant gave voyagers knives, fishing poles, water containers, house parts and musical instruments. It grows from a piece of the clump, so a small start could become a grove on a new island.", "uses": [ { "part": "stem", "text": "A thin piece of stem became the ʻohe hano ihu, a flute played with breath from the nose." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "Tubes of different lengths, called kāʻekeʻeke, were tapped on the ground to make music for hula." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "A length of ʻohe split into thin strips at one end became the pūʻili, a rattle used by hula dancers." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "Strips were carved into ʻohe kāpala, the stamps that printed patterns onto kapa." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "Long straight poles were used to fish for aku." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "Sharp splinters of ʻohe served as knives before metal arrived." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "Hollow sections held water, and whole stems went into house frames." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "Healers mixed the ashes of burned ʻohe into remedies for sores." } ], "useTags": [ "wood-tools", "cloth-cordage", "ceremony", "medicine" ], "partTags": [ "stem" ], "facts": [ { "text": "The ʻohe hano ihu is played with your nose. You gently close one nostril and breathe across the hole with the other, the way you would blow across the top of a bottle.", "source": "keola-nose-flute" }, { "text": "The nose flute is known as a sweetheart instrument. Its sound is soft on purpose, made for one special listener and not for a crowd.", "source": "kaahele-hula-implements" }, { "text": "In a ceremony David Malo described for the birth of a high chief, the kahuna split a piece of ʻohe between his teeth to get a fresh sharp edge. He used that edge to cut the piko of the baby, the umbilical cord.", "source": "malo-1903" }, { "text": "Kāʻekeʻeke pipes ran from about 1 foot to 3 feet long. A player held one in each hand and tapped them down on a mat or the ground. Longer pipes gave deeper notes.", "source": "wehewehe" }, { "text": "ʻOhe kāpala means printing bamboo. Kapa makers carved tiny patterns into bamboo strips, dipped them in dye and stamped them onto cloth, line after line.", "source": "wehewehe" }, { "text": "This bamboo can reach about 40 feet tall, yet its stems are only about 3 inches wide with very thin walls and long spaces between the joints. That shape is handy for flutes, pipes and stamps.", "source": "ntbg" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "The bamboo of Kāne", "text": "In Hawaiian tradition ʻohe is a kinolau, a body form, of the god Kāne. Kāne is linked with fresh water and with life itself, and ʻohe loves wet valleys and stream banks. An old prayer written down by David Malo in the 1800s calls the plant the small-leafed bamboo of Kāne. In the same book Malo tells how a kahuna used a freshly split piece of ʻohe to cut the cord of a newborn chief while prayers were chanted.\n\nTradition also gives ʻohe a gentler job. A young man would make his own nose flute and play his own little tune near the home of the girl he liked. If she liked him back, she would remember the sound of his melody. The flute was never meant to be loud. It was meant for one person.", "kinolau": "Kāne" }, "today": "Hula dancers still use pūʻili and kāʻekeʻeke made from ʻohe. Kapa makers are carving ʻohe kāpala again, and flute makers teach people to play the ʻohe hano ihu. The plant still grows in clumps along streams in wet valleys. Hawaiʻi weed experts rate it a low risk plant because it stays in its clump and does not run.", "grow": { "sun": "Full sun to part sun in a warm, humid, low elevation spot.", "water": "Regular water and soil that drains well. It does not like salt spray.", "planting": "Plant a division from an existing clump and give it room. It can spread about 20 feet wide.", "harvest": "Cut only older, hardened stems at the base and leave the young shoots to keep the clump going." }, "related": [ { "slug": "wauke", "why": "The cloth that ʻohe kāpala stamps decorated." }, { "slug": "ipu", "why": "Two instruments of hula, the ipu heke and the kāʻekeʻeke." }, { "slug": "awa", "why": "Another kinolau, or body form, of the god Kāne." } ], "images": [ { "file": "ohe-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ohe/ohe-01", "alt": "A dense clump of tall, thin, dark green Polynesian bamboo stems with pale papery sheaths still clinging to the joints.", "creditId": "c-ohe-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1067 }, { "file": "ohe-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ohe/ohe-02", "alt": "Ten long strips of bamboo lie side by side, each with a small geometric pattern carved into one end for stamping kapa.", "creditId": "c-ohe-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "ohe-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ohe/ohe-03", "alt": "A park volunteer holds a short bamboo flute up to one nostril and plays it by breathing out through his nose.", "creditId": "c-ohe-03", "role": "culture", "w": 1600, "h": 1068 }, { "file": "ohe-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ohe/ohe-04", "alt": "Nine slim bamboo stamps hang in a row, and each one has a different carved pattern of zigzags, diamonds, or lines at the top.", "creditId": "c-ohe-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1521, "h": 2941 } ], "sources": [ "bishop-ethnobotany", "wehewehe", "ntbg", "malo-1903", "keola-nose-flute", "kaahele-hula-implements", "plant-pono", "st-john-jendrusch-1980" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "olena", "nameHaw": "ʻŌlena", "pronunciation": "oh-LEH-nah", "nameCommon": "Turmeric", "nameSci": "Curcuma longa", "family": "Zingiberaceae", "originRegion": "South Asia and Southeast Asia", "originMapKey": "sea", "carriedAs": "Knobby pieces of rhizome", "hook": "Gold that sleeps underground", "whyInCanoe": "ʻŌlena was packed for color, healing and ceremony, not for filling stomachs. Its orange rhizome gave a strong yellow dye, a medicine for ears and noses, and the gold tint in water used to purify people and places. A few knobby pieces of rhizome were all it took to start a patch.", "uses": [ { "part": "root", "text": "The rhizome was a favorite source of yellow dye for kapa, from pale yellow to gold to mustard." }, { "part": "root", "text": "A kahuna mixed ʻōlena into sea water and sprinkled it to purify people after a death." }, { "part": "root", "text": "Juice from the rhizome was used for earaches." }, { "part": "root", "text": "Healers mixed the rhizome with other plants to treat stuffed up noses and sore throats." }, { "part": "root", "text": "Coconut oil mixed with ʻōlena gave the malo of an aliʻi a sweet smell and a yellow tint." } ], "useTags": [ "medicine", "light-dye", "ceremony" ], "partTags": [ "root" ], "facts": [ { "text": "The name tells you the color. In Hawaiian, ʻōlena also means yellow, the same as the word lena.", "source": "wehewehe" }, { "text": "One thumb sized rhizome could make many shades. Kapa makers got colors from bright canary yellow to deep mustard out of the same plant.", "source": "maui-magazine-olena" }, { "text": "David Malo wrote that after a death, a temple kahuna brought a dish of sea water with limu kala and ʻōlena in it. He prayed, then sprinkled the gold water over everyone to lift the kapu of death.", "source": "malo-1903" }, { "text": "Not everyone could wear ʻōlena yellow. Malo wrote that some fishing gods forbade turmeric, so families who followed those gods kept it off their clothing and away from their fishing gear.", "source": "malo-1903" }, { "text": "ʻŌlena rarely flowers to make seed. New plants come from pieces of rhizome, which is just how the voyagers carried it.", "source": "uh-hilo-olena-2018" }, { "text": "Every winter the leaves die and the plant seems to vanish. It is only resting underground, and it pushes up new leaves in spring.", "source": "uh-hilo-olena-2018" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "Pī kai, the cleansing sprinkle", "text": "This is a customary practice, not a story. In Hawaiian tradition, pī kai means to sprinkle sea water or salted water to purify a person or a place and remove kapu. ʻŌlena was often part of that water. People believed the plant carried mana, spiritual power, and its gold color showed in the bowl.\n\nDavid Malo described the ceremony in the 1800s. The people sat in a row. A kahuna stood before them with a dish of sea water that held limu kala and ʻōlena. He prayed, the people answered, and then he sprinkled the water over all of them. In the practice as it is often described today, a kī leaf is dipped in the bowl and used to sprinkle the blessing. Forms of pī kai are still done in Hawaiʻi at blessings of homes, canoes and new buildings.", "kinolau": "" }, "today": "ʻŌlena is the same species as the turmeric in curry powder. India grows nearly all of the world supply. In Hawaiʻi it is sold fresh at farmers markets, and University of Hawaiʻi researchers test which varieties grow best here. Kapa makers and hula dancers still dye cloth with it.", "grow": { "sun": "Open shade to full sun in a cooler spot, in rich soil that drains well.", "water": "Keep the soil moist but never soggy while the leaves are up. Add compost and mulch.", "planting": "Plant a sprouted piece of rhizome in spring under about half an inch of soil.", "harvest": "Dig the rhizomes in 6 months to a year, when the leaves die back in winter. Mark the spot so you do not lose it." }, "related": [ { "slug": "noni", "why": "The other dye plant, with red as well as yellow." }, { "slug": "awapuhi", "why": "Its cousin in the ginger family, packed for the bath instead of the dye pot." }, { "slug": "awa", "why": "Both had a place in ceremony and in cleansing." } ], "images": [ { "file": "olena-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/olena/olena-01", "alt": "Rows of bright green turmeric plants with broad pointed leaves fill a field, with coconut palms on the horizon.", "creditId": "c-olena-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "olena-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/olena/olena-02", "alt": "A hand holds a freshly dug turmeric rhizome that has been cut open to show its deep orange inside.", "creditId": "c-olena-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "olena-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/olena/olena-03", "alt": "A plate is piled high with knobby orange brown turmeric rhizomes just harvested from a Maui garden.", "creditId": "c-olena-03", "role": "culture", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "olena-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/olena/olena-04", "alt": "A white turmeric flower spike with a touch of yellow sits low among wide ribbed green leaves.", "creditId": "c-olena-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 } ], "sources": [ "bishop-ethnobotany", "abbott-1992", "krauss-1993", "wehewehe", "malo-1903", "maui-magazine-olena", "uh-hilo-olena-2018", "ntbg", "west-hawaii-today-olena-2025" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "awapuhi", "nameHaw": "ʻAwapuhi", "pronunciation": "ah-vah-POO-hee", "nameCommon": "Shampoo ginger", "nameSci": "Zingiber zerumbet", "family": "Zingiberaceae", "originRegion": "South Asia and Southeast Asia", "originMapKey": "sea", "carriedAs": "Pieces of rhizome with a bud", "hook": "Squeeze the cone, get shampoo", "whyInCanoe": "ʻAwapuhi was the bath kit of the voyagers and part of their medicine chest. Its cones gave a slippery shampoo, its rhizome eased aches and scented kapa, and its leaves flavored food in the imu. It travels well as a chunk of rhizome and settles happily into damp, shady forest.", "uses": [ { "part": "flower", "text": "The clear, sudsy liquid squeezed from the ripe flower head was used as shampoo and hair conditioner." }, { "part": "flower", "text": "The same juice could be drunk to quench thirst in the forest." }, { "part": "root", "text": "The rhizome was dried, pounded to powder and tucked into folded kapa to scent it." }, { "part": "root", "text": "The rhizome was mashed with salt and rubbed on the head to ease a headache." }, { "part": "root", "text": "Cooked, softened rhizome was pressed into a sore tooth." }, { "part": "root", "text": "Ground rhizome mixed with water was drunk for a stomachache." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "Leaves and leaf stalks were laid in the imu to flavor pork and fish." } ], "useTags": [ "medicine", "food", "ceremony" ], "partTags": [ "flower", "root", "leaf" ], "facts": [ { "text": "The flower head looks like a green pine cone. As summer goes on it turns bright red and fills with a slimy, sweet smelling liquid. Squeeze it and out comes ready made shampoo.", "source": "ntbg" }, { "text": "Hawaiian women squeezed the juice straight into their hair while bathing at forest pools. It softens hair and makes it shine.", "source": "ntbg" }, { "text": "A famous hair care company started its own ʻawapuhi farm at Paʻauilo on Hawaiʻi Island in 1983. The farm is off the grid. It runs on solar power and collected rain.", "source": "paul-mitchell-awapuhi" }, { "text": "Stored kapa smelled good because of this plant. People pounded the dried rhizome into powder and tucked it into the folds of the cloth.", "source": "bishop-ethnobotany" }, { "text": "Cooks used ʻawapuhi like a seasoning. Leaves and leaf stalks went into the imu with pork and fish to add flavor.", "source": "ntbg" }, { "text": "The plant plays hide and seek. Its leaves yellow and die back every winter, and new shoots pop up in spring.", "source": "plant-pono" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "Ginger leaves yellow quickly", "text": "No long moʻolelo about ʻawapuhi is recorded in the sources we checked. What has been passed down is a saying. Mary Kawena Pukui collected this ʻōlelo noʻeau, a wise saying, about the plant. ʻAwapuhi lau pala wale. Ginger leaves yellow quickly. People said it about a weakling who withers easily, or about anything that passes too soon. Anyone who has watched a green patch of ʻawapuhi turn yellow and vanish in winter knows where the saying comes from.\n\nTradition also ties the plant to the sacred side of life. ʻAwapuhi is said to be one of the kinolau, the body forms, of the god Kāne. Pukui noted that it was sometimes placed on the kuahu, the altar in a hula school.", "kinolau": "Kāne" }, "today": "ʻAwapuhi grows wild in damp, shady forest, and hikers still squeeze the red cones on the trail. The name is on shampoo bottles sold around the world. It is also an easy garden plant, and Hawaiʻi weed experts rate it a low risk. The full name ʻawapuhi kuahiwi, mountain ginger, sets it apart from the showy gingers that arrived much later.", "grow": { "sun": "Part sun to full shade. It is happiest in a shady corner.", "water": "Regular water in rich, moist soil full of compost.", "planting": "Plant a piece of rhizome with a bud on it. It spreads fast, so give it space.", "harvest": "Squeeze the cones in late summer when they turn red. Leaves die back in winter and return in spring." }, "related": [ { "slug": "olena", "why": "Its cousin in the ginger family, packed for dye and medicine." }, { "slug": "wauke", "why": "The kapa that ʻawapuhi powder kept smelling sweet." }, { "slug": "noni", "why": "Another plant still used as a home remedy today." } ], "images": [ { "file": "awapuhi-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/awapuhi/awapuhi-01", "alt": "Two red and green shampoo ginger cones stand on short stalks above wet ground, and the taller one has white flowers at its tip.", "creditId": "c-awapuhi-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "awapuhi-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/awapuhi/awapuhi-02", "alt": "A close up of a shampoo ginger cone shows overlapping red scales that hold the slippery juice used to wash hair.", "creditId": "c-awapuhi-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1067 }, { "file": "awapuhi-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/awapuhi/awapuhi-03", "alt": "Five shampoo ginger cones lie on a white background, ranging from young green ones to ripe red ones.", "creditId": "c-awapuhi-03", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1067 }, { "file": "awapuhi-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/awapuhi/awapuhi-04", "alt": "A thick patch of leafy green shampoo ginger stems covers the ground beside the Waiheʻe Ridge Trail on Maui.", "creditId": "c-awapuhi-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 } ], "sources": [ "bishop-ethnobotany", "abbott-1992", "ntbg", "wehewehe", "plant-pono", "paul-mitchell-awapuhi" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "uhi", "nameHaw": "Uhi", "pronunciation": "OO-hee", "nameCommon": "Greater yam", "nameSci": "Dioscorea alata", "family": "Dioscoreaceae", "originRegion": "Southeast Asia", "originMapKey": "sea", "carriedAs": "Tubers, which double as food on the way", "hook": "The food that would not spoil", "whyInCanoe": "A raw uhi tuber can sit for months without rotting, and few foods in the canoe could do that. Voyagers could eat some on the way and plant the rest when they landed. A piece of the tuber itself is the planting material, so food and seed were the same thing.", "uses": [ { "part": "root", "text": "Tubers were baked in the imu or roasted and eaten while still warm." }, { "part": "root", "text": "Uhi was not pounded into poi because the cooked flesh is too mealy to make a good paste." }, { "part": "root", "text": "Raw yam juice was given as a drink to people sick with fever." }, { "part": "root", "text": "Pieces of the tuber were saved and replanted to start the next crop." }, { "part": "root", "text": "After Western ships arrived, Hawaiians grew uhi in large fields to sell as food for long voyages." } ], "useTags": [ "food", "medicine" ], "partTags": [ "root" ], "facts": [ { "text": "Nobody has ever found uhi growing truly wild. Scientists think every plant on Earth is a clone, grown from a piece of another plant, in a chain that goes back thousands of years.", "source": "sharif-2020" }, { "text": "Uhi tubers often weigh 11 to 22 pounds each, and rare giants reach about 130 pounds. People once said the yams of Niʻihau were so heavy that a horse could carry only two.", "source": "useful-tropical-plants-alata" }, { "text": "David Malo wrote that uhi does not soon spoil if it is uncooked. Whaling crews loved Niʻihau yams for that reason. They lasted longer at sea than ʻuala or kalo.", "source": "niihau-heritage" }, { "text": "When the ships of Captain Cook stopped at Niʻihau in 1778, the people there traded yams and salt for pieces of iron.", "source": "american-heritage-niihau" }, { "text": "In 1810 Kamehameha the Great had a huge yam field planted to supply visiting ships. It covered what is now the middle of downtown Honolulu, between Beretania, King, Nuʻuanu and Alakea streets.", "source": "bishop-ethnobotany" }, { "text": "You can name this yam by its stem. Uhi has a square stem with four thin wings, and it always twines up its pole to the right.", "source": "wilson-1988" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "The yam field under downtown Honolulu", "text": "No well known moʻolelo about uhi is recorded in the sources we checked, so here is a piece of history that is remembered about the plant. It is history, not legend.\n\nBy 1810, foreign ships were stopping in Honolulu more and more often, and every ship needed food that would last for months at sea. Bishop Museum records that Kamehameha the Great had a large field of uhi planted in that year to supply them. The field lay in the area now bounded by Beretania, King, Nuʻuanu and Alakea streets. Today that land is the center of a city. Office towers stand where yam vines once climbed.", "kinolau": "" }, "today": "Uhi is rare on Hawaiʻi tables now, but it still survives in old farming areas long after the farmers left. Across the Pacific it is a food of honor in places like Tonga, Fiji, Samoa and Papua New Guinea. The purple kind is known as ube, the yam that colors Filipino desserts.", "grow": { "sun": "Full sun, with a strong trellis, fence or pole for the vine to climb.", "water": "Water well while the vine is growing. Ease off when the leaves start to yellow.", "planting": "Plant a piece of tuber with a bud in a mound of loose, deep soil that drains well.", "harvest": "Dig carefully after 7 to 10 months, when the vine dies back." }, "related": [ { "slug": "uala", "why": "The two tubers that fed the dry side and the long voyage." }, { "slug": "pia-five-leaf-yam", "why": "Its wild cousin, with spines, twining the opposite way." }, { "slug": "hoi", "why": "The bitter cousin that grows its tubers in the air." } ], "images": [ { "file": "uhi-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/uhi/uhi-01", "alt": "A yam vine with many heart shaped green leaves climbs across a fallen coconut frond in Vavaʻu, Tonga.", "creditId": "c-uhi-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "uhi-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/uhi/uhi-02", "alt": "A thick brown yam tuber with rough hairy skin has been cut at one end to show its speckled purple inside.", "creditId": "c-uhi-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1043 }, { "file": "uhi-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/uhi/uhi-03", "alt": "A round, dirt covered yam tuber with a bright purple stem sits in dark soil where it was just dug up.", "creditId": "c-uhi-03", "role": "culture", "w": 1600, "h": 1054 }, { "file": "uhi-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/uhi/uhi-04", "alt": "Large glossy heart shaped yam leaves with curved veins grow over rocks at Maui Nui Botanical Gardens.", "creditId": "c-uhi-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 } ], "sources": [ "bishop-ethnobotany", "handy-handy-1972", "malo-1903", "wehewehe", "sharif-2020", "useful-tropical-plants-alata", "niihau-heritage", "american-heritage-niihau", "images-old-hawaii-honolulu-1810", "wilson-1988", "uh-manoa-pacific-crops-yam" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "pia-five-leaf-yam", "nameHaw": "Piʻa", "pronunciation": "PEE-ah", "nameCommon": "Five leaf yam", "nameSci": "Dioscorea pentaphylla", "family": "Dioscoreaceae", "originRegion": "South and Southeast Asia", "originMapKey": "sea", "carriedAs": "Small tubers", "hook": "The backup yam in the forest", "whyInCanoe": "Piʻa was insurance. It could be left to grow by itself in a wet valley and dug up when the main crops failed. A plant that feeds you with almost no work is worth a little space in the canoe.", "uses": [ { "part": "root", "text": "The underground tubers were baked in the imu and eaten." }, { "part": "root", "text": "In hard times, when kalo and ʻuala ran short, people dug wild piʻa from the valleys." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "The small aerial tubers that grow along the vine are edible too once they are cooked." } ], "useTags": [ "food" ], "partTags": [ "root", "stem" ], "facts": [ { "text": "One tiny mark changes the plant. Piʻa with an ʻokina is this yam. Pia without one is Polynesian arrowroot, a totally different plant. One old word list says the flesh of piʻa is pure white like the arrowroot, which may explain the matching names.", "source": "kent-1986" }, { "text": "Its leaves look like little hands. Each leaf is split into 3 to 7 leaflets, and a vine always has some leaves with exactly 5.", "source": "wilson-1988" }, { "text": "Sources do not agree about how good it was. David Malo wrote that piʻa was a good and satisfying food, a bit like sweet potato when cooked. Later writers list it only as a famine food.", "source": "malo-1903" }, { "text": "Piʻa was probably never farmed in Hawaiʻi. It was less common than uhi and was left to grow wild in the forest until someone needed it.", "source": "kent-1986" }, { "text": "You can tell it from its cousin uhi with your eyes closed. Piʻa stems have spines and twine to the left. Uhi stems are smooth and winged and twine to the right.", "source": "wilson-1988" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "Food waiting in the forest", "text": "No moʻolelo about piʻa has come down to us in the sources we checked, so we will not make one up. What is recorded is a custom. Hawaiian farmers put their work into kalo, ʻuala and uhi. Piʻa was left alone in the wet valleys, climbing through the trees. When drought or war ruined the gardens, people knew where to find it.\n\nIn the 1800s David Malo wrote that piʻa cooked in the imu was good and satisfying. Later books call it a food for times of famine. Both can be true. A food you eat only when you must can still taste good when you are hungry.", "kinolau": "" }, "today": "Piʻa still grows wild in windward valleys on most of the main islands, mostly between about 500 and 1,000 feet up. Few people eat it now. Botanists and hikers know it by its hand shaped leaves on a thin, prickly vine.", "grow": { "sun": "Part shade, such as the edge of a grove of trees, like its home in wet valleys.", "water": "Steady moisture. It likes the rainy windward side.", "planting": "Start it from a small aerial tuber or a piece of tuber beside a tree or fence it can climb. Mind the spines.", "harvest": "Rarely grown for food today. Any tuber must be cooked before eating." }, "related": [ { "slug": "uhi", "why": "The farmed yam. Smooth winged stems that twine to the right." }, { "slug": "hoi", "why": "The other backup yam, and the more poisonous one." }, { "slug": "pia", "why": "Same name without the ʻokina, and a totally different plant." } ], "images": [ { "file": "pia-five-leaf-yam-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/pia-five-leaf-yam/pia-five-leaf-yam-01", "alt": "A tangle of bright green yam vine leaves, each split into several pointed leaflets, climbs through a forest on Maui.", "creditId": "c-pia-five-leaf-yam-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "pia-five-leaf-yam-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/pia-five-leaf-yam/pia-five-leaf-yam-02", "alt": "A close up of one piʻa leaf shows five oval leaflets spreading from a single point like fingers on a hand.", "creditId": "c-pia-five-leaf-yam-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "pia-five-leaf-yam-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/pia-five-leaf-yam/pia-five-leaf-yam-03", "alt": "Piʻa vines twist up thin tree trunks and cover them in leaves in a wet Maui forest.", "creditId": "c-pia-five-leaf-yam-03", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "pia-five-leaf-yam-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/pia-five-leaf-yam/pia-five-leaf-yam-04", "alt": "A hanging string of tiny cream colored yam flower buds is seen close up against dark green leaves.", "creditId": "c-pia-five-leaf-yam-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 } ], "sources": [ "bishop-ethnobotany", "krauss-1993", "wehewehe", "kent-1986", "malo-1903", "wilson-1988", "st-john-jendrusch-1980" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "hoi", "nameHaw": "Hoi", "pronunciation": "HOY", "nameCommon": "Bitter yam, air potato", "nameSci": "Dioscorea bulbifera", "family": "Dioscoreaceae", "originRegion": "Asia and Africa", "originMapKey": "sea", "carriedAs": "Air tubers picked off the vine", "hook": "Potatoes that grow in the air", "whyInCanoe": "Hoi was the food of last resort. It is bitter and poisonous when raw, so nobody ate it by choice. But it grows wild with no care at all, and in a famine a food that takes days of work to make safe is far better than no food.", "uses": [ { "part": "stem", "text": "The round aerial tubers that form along the vine were eaten only in times of famine." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "To make them safe, people cooked and grated them, then washed the mash in several changes of water." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "The washed mash was strained through the cloth-like fiber from the base of coconut leaves until the bitter taste was gone." }, { "part": "root", "text": "The small underground tuber is bitter too and was part of the same last resort food supply." } ], "useTags": [ "food" ], "partTags": [ "stem", "root" ], "facts": [ { "text": "Hoi grows potatoes in the air. Round tubers form right on the vine where the leaves join the stem. Hawaiian has a special word for them, ʻalaʻala.", "source": "wehewehe" }, { "text": "It is poisonous unless it is prepared the right way. David Malo wrote that hoi had to be cooked, grated, washed in several waters and strained until it was sweet. Only then was it a very satisfying food.", "source": "malo-1903" }, { "text": "One vine can stretch about 100 feet. It twines to the left as it climbs, the opposite way from its cousin uhi.", "source": "bishop-ethnobotany" }, { "text": "In Florida this same plant is a monster weed. It was brought there in 1905, and its vines can grow about 6 inches in a single day and smother whole trees.", "source": "nisic-air-potato" }, { "text": "To fight it, scientists released more than a million leaf eating beetles from Asia at about 4,000 sites in Florida and nearby states. The beetles cut the number of air potatoes by about 90 percent.", "source": "usda-ars-air-potato" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "Ulu ka hoi", "text": "Hoi shows up in Hawaiian wordplay more than in stories. The name of the plant sounds like hoihoi, which means interest or delight. Mary Kawena Pukui collected sayings that play on this. Ulu ka hoi means the hoi vine grows. People said it to mean that there is interest in what is going on. The opposite saying, that the hoi vine does not grow, was used by someone who was bored.\n\nA third saying speaks of the ʻalaʻala, the little tubers in the air. When the aerial tubers appear, it means a lot of nothing worth troubling about. A plant that cost so much work for so little food made a good joke. These are traditional sayings, a window into how people felt about the plant.", "kinolau": "" }, "today": "Hoi still climbs through shady valleys and disturbed forest in Hawaiʻi, from near sea level up to about 2,200 feet. Almost nobody eats it. In Florida and other southern states it is one of the worst plant invaders, and people hold yearly roundups to collect the fallen air potatoes.", "grow": { "sun": "It grows in sun or shade. That is part of the problem.", "water": "It needs no care in moist valleys.", "planting": "Do not plant it carelessly. Every dropped air potato can start a new vine, and the plant is a serious invasive weed in other places. Learn it in the wild or in a managed garden collection.", "harvest": "Not for eating. The wild type is poisonous without expert preparation." }, "related": [ { "slug": "uhi", "why": "The farmed yam that people actually wanted to eat." }, { "slug": "pia-five-leaf-yam", "why": "The other backup yam waiting in the forest." }, { "slug": "ape", "why": "Another famine food that needed long, careful cooking." } ], "images": [ { "file": "hoi-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/hoi/hoi-01", "alt": "Shiny heart shaped hoi leaves with deep curved veins overlap in a thick green blanket on Maui.", "creditId": "c-hoi-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "hoi-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/hoi/hoi-02", "alt": "Two rough, brown, potato like bulbils hang in the air from a dark twisting hoi vine.", "creditId": "c-hoi-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 900 }, { "file": "hoi-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/hoi/hoi-03", "alt": "Eight pale gray air potatoes of different sizes, from tiny to fist sized, are laid out on a black cloth.", "creditId": "c-hoi-03", "role": "culture", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "hoi-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/hoi/hoi-04", "alt": "Round pale bulbils dangle along a hanging hoi vine between large heart shaped leaves on Maui.", "creditId": "c-hoi-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 2133 } ], "sources": [ "bishop-ethnobotany", "abbott-1992", "wehewehe", "malo-1903", "wilson-1988", "nisic-air-potato", "usda-ars-air-potato", "wildlife-of-hawaii-hoi", "st-john-jendrusch-1980" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "pia", "nameHaw": "Pia", "pronunciation": "PEE-ah", "nameCommon": "Polynesian arrowroot", "nameSci": "Tacca leontopetaloides", "family": "Dioscoreaceae (formerly Taccaceae)", "originRegion": "Southeast Asia and Pacific", "originMapKey": "sea", "carriedAs": "Small tubers", "hook": "The secret inside haupia", "whyInCanoe": "Pia tubers are small, tough, and packed with starch. Voyagers carried them as a backup food and as medicine for upset stomachs. Once planted, pia looks after itself and comes back every year.", "uses": [ { "part": "root", "text": "The tubers were grated, soaked, and rinsed again and again until a fine white starch settled out." }, { "part": "root", "text": "The dried starch was mixed with coconut cream and cooked into haupia pudding." }, { "part": "root", "text": "Raw starch stirred into water, sometimes with red ʻalaea clay, was a remedy for diarrhea and dysentery." }, { "part": "root", "text": "Healers used lumps of pia in water as part of a treatment for nausea and vomiting." }, { "part": "root", "text": "The fine powder was dusted on skin like talcum powder and was later used to starch clothes." } ], "useTags": [ "food", "medicine" ], "partTags": [ "root" ], "facts": [ { "text": "The pia in haupia is this plant. The coconut pudding was first thickened with pia starch. Most haupia today uses cornstarch instead.", "source": "ntbg" }, { "text": "You cannot just bite into a pia tuber. It is bitter when raw. The grated tuber had to be soaked and rinsed many times before the starch was good to eat.", "source": "ntbg" }, { "text": "Pia became the Hawaiian word for any starch. Starch from the real plant is called pia Hawaiʻi to tell it apart from the store kind.", "source": "wehewehe" }, { "text": "Pia plays dead. Every winter the leaves turn yellow and vanish, and the tubers sleep underground until spring.", "source": "bornhorst-2012" }, { "text": "The flower is one of the strangest in the garden. Green and purple blooms sit on a tall stalk with long threads hanging down like whiskers.", "source": "plant-pono" }, { "text": "In lāʻau lapaʻau, pia starch was mixed with water and red clay to treat dysentery and bleeding inside the gut.", "source": "ntbg" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "A plant that lives on in a word", "text": "We did not find a recorded moʻolelo about pia, so here is a tradition of language instead. When new kinds of starch arrived in Hawaiʻi, people did not borrow a new word for them. They used the name of the old canoe plant. Cornstarch, laundry starch, all of it became pia. The Hawaiian dictionary by Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel Elbert says that starch from the original plant came to be called pia Hawaiʻi, the Hawaiian starch.\n\nThe same thing happened with dessert. Haupia kept its name even after most cooks stopped using pia to make it. So every time someone orders haupia, they say the name of a plant that few people have ever seen.", "kinolau": "" }, "today": "Pia is rare in Hawaiʻi now. Cornstarch replaced it in the kitchen, and the plant mostly survives in ethnobotanical gardens and a few backyards. Some gardeners grow it for its odd whiskered flowers and to make haupia the old way.", "grow": { "sun": "Partial sun to shade in a warm lowland spot.", "water": "Regular water while it is leafy. Keep soil just barely moist while it sleeps in winter. It needs good drainage.", "planting": "Plant a small tuber a few inches deep. Mark the spot so nobody digs it up when the leaves vanish.", "harvest": "Dig tubers in winter when the leaves turn dry and yellow, about 8 to 10 months after they sprout." }, "related": [ { "slug": "niu", "why": "Coconut cream and pia starch together made haupia." }, { "slug": "pia-five-leaf-yam", "why": "Same name with an ʻokina, and a totally different plant." }, { "slug": "uala", "why": "The food that ended famines fast, while pia was the backup." } ], "images": [ { "file": "pia-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/pia/pia-01", "alt": "A tall pia flower stalk topped with green buds and long thread like whiskers rises among deeply divided leaves.", "creditId": "c-pia-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "pia-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/pia/pia-02", "alt": "A round, tan pia tuber about the size of a potato has white roots spreading from the base of its pale stem.", "creditId": "c-pia-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1551 }, { "file": "pia-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/pia/pia-03", "alt": "An open hand holds a small pile of fine white pia starch in front of the big green leaves of the plant.", "creditId": "c-pia-03", "role": "culture", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "pia-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/pia/pia-04", "alt": "A cluster of green pia flowers and round young fruits sits at the top of a stalk, with long green threads hanging down all around it.", "creditId": "c-pia-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 } ], "sources": [ "ntbg", "bishop-ethnobotany", "wehewehe", "bornhorst-2012", "plant-pono", "canoeplants-com" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "ape", "nameHaw": "ʻApe", "pronunciation": "AH-peh", "nameCommon": "Giant taro", "nameSci": "Alocasia macrorrhizos", "family": "Araceae", "originRegion": "Southeast Asia", "originMapKey": "sea", "carriedAs": "Side shoots or pieces of the thick stem", "hook": "The giant you eat last", "whyInCanoe": "ʻApe was insurance. Nobody wanted to eat it, but in a famine its big starchy stem could keep a family alive. Its leaves and juice were also medicine, and its stinging sap was believed to keep bad spirits away.", "uses": [ { "part": "root", "text": "The corm and thick underground stem were famine food, eaten only after very long cooking." }, { "part": "root", "text": "Flesh of the corm was put on burns and damaged skin." }, { "part": "stem", "text": "Juice from the peeled stem was rubbed on skin stung by nettles or the itchy hairs of kō." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "The huge leaves were wrapped around a person with a fever to bring comfort and help them sweat." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "Leaves were laid under the kapa or mats of a sick person because the sap was believed to drive off harmful spirits." } ], "useTags": [ "food", "medicine", "ceremony" ], "partTags": [ "root", "stem", "leaf" ], "facts": [ { "text": "ʻApe can grow up to 5 meters tall. That is taller than a basketball hoop. A single leaf can be 2 to 4 feet long.", "source": "bishop-ethnobotany" }, { "text": "Here is how to tell ʻape from kalo. ʻApe leaves point up at the sky. Kalo leaves point down at the ground.", "source": "canoeplants-com" }, { "text": "Raw ʻape is full of tiny needle shaped crystals of calcium oxalate that burn and itch. Only long cooking breaks them down, so people ate it just when other food ran out.", "source": "ntbg" }, { "text": "According to the Hawaiian dictionary, ʻape was planted by gates and fences so its irritating sap would ward off evil spirits. It was not planted right next to the house, for fear the people inside would get sick.", "source": "wehewehe" }, { "text": "The plant that makes you itch also stops an itch. Stem juice was used on skin stung by nettles and by the prickly hairs of sugarcane.", "source": "ntbg" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "Eat the ʻape, get the itch", "text": "An old Hawaiian saying uses ʻape to teach a lesson. ʻAi nō i ka ʻape he maneʻo no ko ka nuku. He who eats the ʻape is bound to have his mouth itch. It means that if you choose to do something harmful, you should not be surprised by what happens next.\n\nTradition also gave ʻape a guarding job. People believed its bitter, stinging sap could frighten away harmful spirits. So ʻape stood watch at gates and fences, and its leaves were tucked under the mats of the sick. These are beliefs passed down in Hawaiian tradition, not medical science.", "kinolau": "" }, "today": "ʻApe is now mostly a landscape plant. People grow it in yards, parks, and hotel gardens for its giant tropical leaves and the shade they give. Almost nobody eats it, and you should not try. It is still grown in Hawaiian ethnobotanical gardens next to its cousin kalo.", "grow": { "sun": "Partial sun to full shade.", "water": "Plenty of water and rich, composted soil that drains well.", "planting": "Plant a side shoot or a cutting of the thick stem. Wear gloves because the sap stings.", "harvest": "Grow it for the giant leaves, not for lunch. Never taste any part of it raw." }, "related": [ { "slug": "kalo", "why": "Its edible cousin. Kalo leaves point down, ʻape leaves point up." }, { "slug": "hoi", "why": "Another famine food that had to be made safe before eating." }, { "slug": "ki", "why": "Both were planted to guard a home from harm." } ], "images": [ { "file": "ape-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ape/ape-01", "alt": "Huge upright ʻape leaves glow yellow green as sunlight shines through them, showing every vein.", "creditId": "c-ape-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1171 }, { "file": "ape-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ape/ape-02", "alt": "A close up shows the thick stem base of a young ʻape plant wrapped in brown papery layers where it meets dark stony soil.", "creditId": "c-ape-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1769 }, { "file": "ape-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ape/ape-03", "alt": "A tall ʻape plant with giant arrow shaped leaves that point upward grows under ʻulu trees at Kahanu Garden in Hāna.", "creditId": "c-ape-03", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 2133 }, { "file": "ape-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ape/ape-04", "alt": "Dozens of giant ʻape leaves crowd together in a lush green thicket at the edge of a forest.", "creditId": "c-ape-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 } ], "sources": [ "bishop-ethnobotany", "ntbg", "wehewehe", "canoeplants-com", "plant-pono", "abbott-1992" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "kamani", "nameHaw": "Kamani", "pronunciation": "kah-MAH-nee", "nameCommon": "Tamanu, Alexandrian laurel", "nameSci": "Calophyllum inophyllum", "family": "Calophyllaceae", "originRegion": "Indo Pacific coasts", "originMapKey": "indopacific", "carriedAs": "Seeds, most likely", "hook": "Bowls, oil, and orange blossom perfume", "whyInCanoe": "Kamani is a tough shoreline tree with beautiful hard wood and oily nuts. Voyagers likely carried its seeds so they would have wood for bowls and canoes, oil for lamps and kapa, and sweet flowers for lei. It was also a sacred tree in parts of Polynesia.", "uses": [ { "part": "wood", "text": "The reddish brown wood was carved into ʻumeke kamani food bowls and pā kamani trays because it gave food no bad taste or smell." }, { "part": "wood", "text": "The hard wood was also used for canoes and houses." }, { "part": "seed", "text": "Oil pressed from the kernels was burned for light and rubbed into kapa to waterproof it." }, { "part": "seed", "text": "The hard round shells were made into whistles called oeoe and strung into lei." }, { "part": "flower", "text": "The white flowers smell like orange blossoms and were used to scent kapa and to make lei." }, { "part": "fruit", "text": "The fruit husk gave a brownish mauve dye for kapa." }, { "part": "sap", "text": "Resin from the bark was used to treat ulcers and sores." } ], "useTags": [ "wood-tools", "light-dye", "cloth-cordage", "medicine", "ceremony" ], "partTags": [ "wood", "seed", "flower", "fruit", "sap" ], "facts": [ { "text": "Kamani flowers smell like orange blossoms. Hawaiians used them to perfume freshly made kapa.", "source": "bishop-ethnobotany" }, { "text": "Kids could make a whistle from a kamani nut. The hollowed shells were made into whistles called oeoe.", "source": "mnbg" }, { "text": "The thick green oil from the nut was lamp fuel and kapa waterproofing. It is not food. The seeds and oil are not edible.", "source": "mnbg" }, { "text": "Kamani is a tree built for the beach. It shrugs off salt spray and wind, and scientists describe its seeds as spreading by drifting on the sea.", "source": "hanaoka-2014" }, { "text": "A kamani bowl does not flavor the poi. The wood has no bad taste or smell, which made it a favorite for food bowls and trays.", "source": "ntbg" }, { "text": "Doors on the main floor of ʻIolani Palace have panels of kamani wood.", "source": "plant-pono" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "A tree for sacred places", "text": "Across parts of Polynesia, kamani is remembered as a sacred tree. In Hawaiʻi it was often planted around heiau, and it is named in old chants. A famous grove of kamani still stands on the island of Molokaʻi.\n\nThe tree also lives in song. The mele Makalapua, written in honor of Queen Liliʻuokalani, sings of breaking off kamani blossoms to string in a lei. So the little white flower with the orange blossom scent carries a royal memory too.", "kinolau": "" }, "today": "Oil from kamani nuts is sold around the world as tamanu oil for skin care. In Hawaiʻi the tree is a common shade tree in beach parks and along coastal roads. Woodworkers still prize the wood for bowls.", "grow": { "sun": "Full sun. It loves the coast and handles wind and salt spray.", "water": "Water until it is established. After that it tolerates dry spells and poor soil.", "planting": "Grow from seed. Crack or remove the hard shell first so it sprouts faster. Give it room, because it casts heavy shade.", "harvest": "A slow tree that needs years before it flowers. In Hawaiʻi it fruits from April to June and again from October to December." }, "related": [ { "slug": "milo", "why": "Another shoreline tree carved into food bowls." }, { "slug": "kou", "why": "The third bowl wood, the one science moved off the canoe list." }, { "slug": "kukui", "why": "The other nut pressed for lamp oil." } ], "images": [ { "file": "kamani-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/kamani/kamani-01", "alt": "A wide kamani tree spreads its glossy dark green branches over a sunny lawn at Kahanu Garden in Hāna, Maui.", "creditId": "c-kamani-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "kamani-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/kamani/kamani-02", "alt": "Round, wrinkled kamani nuts the size of golf balls lie scattered on the ground among dry twigs and needles.", "creditId": "c-kamani-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "kamani-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/kamani/kamani-03", "alt": "Small white kamani flowers with bright yellow centers hang in a cluster in front of shiny green leaves.", "creditId": "c-kamani-03", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "kamani-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/kamani/kamani-04", "alt": "Three brown, wrinkled kamani fruits hang below stiff oval leaves with bright yellow midribs against a blue sky.", "creditId": "c-kamani-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 } ], "sources": [ "bishop-ethnobotany", "ntbg", "mnbg", "plant-pono", "hanaoka-2014", "canoeplants-com", "abbott-1992" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "milo", "nameHaw": "Milo", "pronunciation": "MEE-loh", "nameCommon": "Portia tree", "nameSci": "Thespesia populnea", "family": "Malvaceae", "originRegion": "Indo Pacific coasts", "originMapKey": "indopacific", "carriedAs": "Seeds or cuttings, if voyagers brought it at all", "hook": "The bowl tree with a mystery", "whyInCanoe": "Milo was probably brought by voyagers for its wood and bark fiber, but scientists are not fully sure. Its seeds can float across oceans, so some botanists think milo reached Hawaiʻi on its own before any people did. Either way, Hawaiians planted it, shaped it, and loved it.", "uses": [ { "part": "wood", "text": "The rich, fine grained wood was carved into ʻumeke ʻai poi bowls, plates, and paddles." }, { "part": "wood", "text": "Milo wood was also used for house posts and sometimes for a canoe hull." }, { "part": "bark", "text": "Bark fiber was twisted into cordage, though it was not as strong as hau or olonā." }, { "part": "fruit", "text": "The fruit gave a yellowish green dye for kapa." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "Young leaves could be eaten." } ], "useTags": [ "wood-tools", "cloth-cordage", "light-dye", "food" ], "partTags": [ "wood", "bark", "fruit", "leaf" ], "facts": [ { "text": "Nobody knows for sure how milo got to Hawaiʻi. The Bishop Museum lists it as indigenous with a question mark. University of Hawaiʻi botanists say it is probably indigenous but may have been brought by early Polynesians.", "source": "ctahr" }, { "text": "Milo seeds can survive for months drifting on ocean currents. That is why the tree could have arrived with no canoe at all.", "source": "wikipedia-thespesia" }, { "text": "Milo wood has no bad tasting sap, so it does not flavor the poi. That made it one of the best woods for food bowls.", "source": "canoeplants-com" }, { "text": "Many milo trees surrounded the Waikīkī home of Kamehameha I.", "source": "bishop-ethnobotany" }, { "text": "Each milo flower lasts just one day. It opens pale yellow with a maroon center in the morning, then darkens toward orange or purplish pink before it falls.", "source": "plant-pono" }, { "text": "In Tahiti, milo was a sacred tree planted around temples. It was said to be connected to chant and prayer.", "source": "canoeplants-com" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "Milo is the plant, love goes round", "text": "An old Hawaiian saying plays with the name of this tree. He milo ka lāʻau, mimilo ke aloha. Milo is the plant, love goes round and round. In Hawaiian, milo also means to twist, to curl, or to whirl like water. So the saying ties the tree to love that spins and swirls.\n\nMilo was also a tree of chiefs. Tradition says that milo trees shaded the home of Kamehameha I at Waikīkī. One source says that in old Hawaiʻi, the beautifully grained milo bowls and ornaments were kept for the aliʻi.", "kinolau": "" }, "today": "Milo is still a favorite of Hawaiʻi woodworkers, who turn it into glossy bowls in shades from tan to deep red. It is planted as a shade tree near the ocean and used in coastal restoration projects. The question of whether it is native or a canoe plant is still open.", "grow": { "sun": "Full sun near the coast. It handles salt, wind, heat, and drought.", "water": "Water until it is established. After that it needs little.", "planting": "Nick or sand the seed coat, then plant. Seeds sprout in 2 to 4 weeks. Cuttings also work.", "harvest": "Grows fast when young and can flower at about two years. It drops leaves and seed pods all year, so plan for raking." }, "related": [ { "slug": "kamani", "why": "Another shoreline tree carved into food bowls." }, { "slug": "kou", "why": "The bowl wood that turned out to be here before people." }, { "slug": "hau", "why": "Its close relative in the hibiscus family, and also debated." } ], "images": [ { "file": "milo-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/milo/milo-01", "alt": "A grove of low, rounded milo trees leans together behind the beach at Kanahā, Maui, with the blue ocean showing between the trunks.", "creditId": "c-milo-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "milo-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/milo/milo-02", "alt": "A pale yellow milo flower with crinkled petals and a dark red center opens among heart shaped leaves.", "creditId": "c-milo-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "milo-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/milo/milo-03", "alt": "A low, wide feast bowl turned from milo wood shows swirling bands of dark brown and golden grain.", "creditId": "c-milo-03", "role": "culture", "w": 1600, "h": 1018 }, { "file": "milo-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/milo/milo-04", "alt": "Green, flattened milo seed capsules hang on long stalks among heart shaped leaves with pale veins.", "creditId": "c-milo-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "milo-05.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/milo/milo-05", "alt": "A single milo tree with a short trunk and a broad, rounded crown of heart shaped leaves grows on a grassy slope.", "creditId": "c-milo-05", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 } ], "sources": [ "bishop-ethnobotany", "ctahr", "mnbg", "plant-pono", "canoeplants-com", "wikipedia-thespesia", "wehewehe", "abbott-1992" ], "status": "debated" }, { "slug": "ipu", "nameHaw": "Ipu", "pronunciation": "EE-poo", "nameCommon": "Bottle gourd", "nameSci": "Lagenaria siceraria", "family": "Cucurbitaceae", "originRegion": "Africa originally, then Asia and the Americas", "originMapKey": "sea", "carriedAs": "Seeds", "hook": "The heartbeat of hula", "whyInCanoe": "Hawaiians did not make clay pots. The ipu was their bottle, bucket, lunch box, and drum. A canoe full of settlers needed gourds to carry water and store food, so ipu seeds came along.", "uses": [ { "part": "fruit", "text": "Dried gourds became hue wai water bottles, food containers, dippers, and canoe bailers." }, { "part": "fruit", "text": "Two gourds joined together make the ipu heke, the drum that keeps the beat for hula." }, { "part": "fruit", "text": "Small gourds filled with seeds became ʻulīʻulī, the hula rattles." }, { "part": "fruit", "text": "Fishermen kept hooks and lines in lidded gourds that would float if the canoe flipped." }, { "part": "fruit", "text": "Big gourds were made into helmets or masks worn by priests." }, { "part": "fruit", "text": "The flesh of the fruit was mixed with other plants in lāʻau lapaʻau." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "Young leaves were an ingredient in some traditional medicines." } ], "useTags": [ "wood-tools", "ceremony", "medicine" ], "partTags": [ "fruit", "leaf" ], "facts": [ { "text": "The bottle gourd was one of the first plants humans ever domesticated. People grew it for containers, net floats, and instruments more than for food.", "source": "kistler-2014" }, { "text": "Fishermen stored their hooks and lines in gourds. If the canoe flipped over, the gourd floated and the gear was saved.", "source": "bishop-ethnobotany" }, { "text": "In 1779 John Webber, the artist on Captain Cook's third voyage, drew a Hawaiian canoe with ten paddlers wearing gourd helmets. The Bishop Museum notes these were worn by priests and not warriors, since a gourd is too fragile for battle.", "source": "rmg-webber" }, { "text": "A 2006 DNA study found that Polynesian bottle gourds carry markers from both Asian and American gourds. The authors said this needs more testing, but it is one more hint that Polynesian voyagers may have reached the Americas.", "source": "clarke-2006" }, { "text": "On Niʻihau, artists decorated gourds from the inside out. They scraped a pattern into the fresh skin, filled the gourd with dye, and let the color soak through. These ipu pāwehe were made only in Hawaiʻi.", "source": "wikipedia-ipu" }, { "text": "Gourds cross oceans without help. A 2014 study found that gourds in the ancient Americas came from Africa, most likely by floating across the Atlantic.", "source": "kistler-2014" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "The body of Lono", "text": "In Hawaiian tradition the ipu is a kinolau, a body form, of the god Lono. Lono is tied to rain, farming, and fertility. A round gourd swelling on the vine was a sign of his presence. Planters followed the moon too. Tradition says the best time to plant ipu was during the Hua moon, a few nights before the full moon, since hua also means fruit.\n\nThe ipu also appears in wise sayings. ʻAʻohe ipu ʻōpio e ʻole ka mimino i ka lā. No young gourd can keep from withering in the sun without care. It means that children, like young gourds, need adults to look after them.", "kinolau": "Lono" }, "today": "The ipu heke still keeps the beat for hula across Hawaiʻi and around the world. Growers and artists raise gourds for instruments, bowls, and art, and some decorate them with the old Niʻihau dye method. In local talk, a calabash is still the word for a big shared serving bowl.", "grow": { "sun": "Full sun in a warm, dry, low elevation spot.", "water": "Keep seedlings moist. Give less water once the vine flowers.", "planting": "Plant seeds so the fruit ripens in dry weather. Give the vine a trellis or soft mulch so the gourds do not rot. Hand pollinate the white flowers in the evening.", "harvest": "About 6 months, though it can take 3 to 9. Let the gourd mature fully on the vine, then dry it completely before cleaning it out." }, "related": [ { "slug": "uala", "why": "Both belong to Lono, the god of rain and farming." }, { "slug": "ohe", "why": "Two instruments of hula, the ipu heke and the kāʻekeʻeke." }, { "slug": "niu", "why": "Gourd and coconut shell, the two containers of a kitchen with no pottery." } ], "images": [ { "file": "ipu-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ipu/ipu-01", "alt": "Pale green bottle gourds rest on the ground under a sprawling tangle of ipu vines with big soft leaves on a farm in Kula, Maui.", "creditId": "c-ipu-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "ipu-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ipu/ipu-02", "alt": "A large pale green ipu gourd sits half hidden under broad, fuzzy leaves on the vine.", "creditId": "c-ipu-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "ipu-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ipu/ipu-03", "alt": "An ipu heke, the hula drum made from two polished gourds joined at the neck, lies on white sand with its woven carrying strap.", "creditId": "c-ipu-03", "role": "culture", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "ipu-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ipu/ipu-04", "alt": "An engraving of a drawing John Webber made in 1779 shows a Hawaiian double canoe with a crab claw sail, paddled by men wearing gourd helmets trimmed with leaves and strips of kapa.", "creditId": "c-ipu-04", "role": "culture", "w": 1600, "h": 1004 }, { "file": "ipu-05.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ipu/ipu-05", "alt": "A round brown gourd bowl is covered in bands of triangles, hexagons, and dots, the dyed patterns of an ipu pāwehe.", "creditId": "c-ipu-05", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1323 } ], "sources": [ "bishop-ethnobotany", "canoeplants-com", "clarke-2006", "kistler-2014", "rmg-webber", "wikipedia-ipu", "duff-2019", "handy-handy-1972", "krauss-1993" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "ohia-ai", "nameHaw": "ʻŌhiʻa ʻai", "pronunciation": "oh-HEE-ah EYE", "nameCommon": "Mountain apple", "nameSci": "Syzygium malaccense", "family": "Myrtaceae", "originRegion": "Malesia", "originMapKey": "sea", "carriedAs": "Seeds or seedlings", "hook": "Flowers that burst from the trunk", "whyInCanoe": "Voyagers packed plenty of starchy roots but only a few fruits. ʻŌhiʻa ʻai was one of them, crisp and juicy and good on a hot day. It also gave hard wood for building, bark for medicine and dye, and it grew happily in the wet valleys where people settled.", "uses": [ { "part": "fruit", "text": "The crisp, juicy fruit was eaten fresh, right off the tree." }, { "part": "fruit", "text": "Hawaiians also split the fruit and dried it in the sun to save for later." }, { "part": "fruit", "text": "The red skin of the fruit gave a red dye." }, { "part": "bark", "text": "A tea brewed from the bark soothed a sore throat." }, { "part": "bark", "text": "Bark pounded with salt and strained was put on wounds, and the inner bark gave a brown dye." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "Leaves were used in remedies for bronchitis." }, { "part": "wood", "text": "The hard, heavy trunks were hewn into house posts, rafters, and fences around temples." }, { "part": "wood", "text": "Religious images were carved from the wood, which was treated as sacred." } ], "useTags": [ "food", "medicine", "wood-tools", "light-dye", "ceremony" ], "partTags": [ "fruit", "bark", "leaf", "wood" ], "facts": [ { "text": "The flowers do not grow out at the leafy tips. They burst straight out of the trunk and bare branches like hot pink pincushions, then fall and carpet the ground in purplish red.", "source": "little-skolmen-ohia-ai" }, { "text": "The name means edible ʻōhiʻa. It is a cousin of ʻōhiʻa lehua in the myrtle family, but they are two different trees, and only this one came by canoe.", "source": "wehewehe" }, { "text": "This may have been one of the very few fruits in Hawaiʻi before Europeans arrived. No mango, no papaya, no guava. Those all came later.", "source": "ntbg" }, { "text": "In 1793 Captain William Bligh carried mountain apple from Tahiti to Jamaica on the same voyage that finally delivered breadfruit. Yes, that Bligh, the one from the mutiny on the Bounty.", "source": "little-skolmen-ohia-ai" }, { "text": "Plant a seed today and you will wait 7 to 8 years for your first fruit. The voyagers who planted it were planting for their children.", "source": "little-skolmen-ohia-ai" }, { "text": "In wet windward valleys the trees can crowd together into almost pure mountain apple forest, up to about 1,800 feet above the sea.", "source": "little-skolmen-ohia-ai" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "A sacred wood and a gift for Laka", "text": "This is a tradition, not a single story. Old accounts say Hawaiians treated the wood of ʻōhiʻa ʻai as sacred. It was carved into religious images and set up as the fence posts around temples. The fruit had a place in hula too. It is recorded among the offerings placed on the kuahu, the altar in a hula school.\n\nYou may read that ʻōhiʻa ʻai is a body form of the god Kū or is tied to Pele. Those traditions belong most clearly to its cousin, ʻōhiʻa lehua, and some writers mix the two trees up. So we leave that claim out here. It is a good reminder to check which ʻōhiʻa a story is really about.", "kinolau": "" }, "today": "Mountain apple trees still fill wet valleys on the windward sides of the islands, and hikers snack on the fruit in summer. The fruit has thin, soft skin and bruises easily, so you will rarely see it in a big grocery store. Look for it at farmers markets and in backyard trees. People eat it fresh, pickle it, or cook it into preserves.", "grow": { "sun": "Full sun to part sun, with shelter from strong wind.", "water": "Lots. It wants steady water and does best in wet, humid places.", "planting": "Grows easily from the single big seed inside a ripe fruit. Plant it fresh.", "harvest": "Be patient. Trees take 7 to 8 years to fruit, then bloom in spring and fruit in summer and fall." }, "related": [ { "slug": "ulu", "why": "Carried to the Caribbean on the same voyage with Captain Bligh." }, { "slug": "ki", "why": "Fruit offered at the hula altar, leaves worn by the dancers." }, { "slug": "kamani", "why": "Another hard wood that went into buildings and sacred places." } ], "images": [ { "file": "ohia-ai-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ohia-ai/ohia-ai-01", "alt": "Looking up into a mountain apple tree, bright magenta pom pom flowers burst straight from the trunk and branches among big green leaves.", "creditId": "c-ohia-ai-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "ohia-ai-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ohia-ai/ohia-ai-02", "alt": "Shiny red and green mountain apples, shaped like small pears, hang in a bunch beneath a mossy branch.", "creditId": "c-ohia-ai-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "ohia-ai-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ohia-ai/ohia-ai-03", "alt": "Hot pink mountain apple flowers made of hundreds of thin stamens open on a bare branch next to round buds.", "creditId": "c-ohia-ai-03", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "ohia-ai-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ohia-ai/ohia-ai-04", "alt": "A deep red mountain apple sits beside one cut in half, showing crisp white flesh around a single large seed.", "creditId": "c-ohia-ai-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 953 } ], "sources": [ "little-skolmen-ohia-ai", "bishop-ethnobotany", "wehewehe", "ntbg", "plant-pono", "canoeplants-com" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "hau", "nameHaw": "Hau", "pronunciation": "HOW", "nameCommon": "Sea hibiscus", "nameSci": "Hibiscus tiliaceus", "family": "Malvaceae", "originRegion": "Pantropical coasts", "originMapKey": "indopacific", "carriedAs": "Branch cuttings, if voyagers brought it at all", "hook": "Rope, floats, and fire", "whyInCanoe": "A canoe needs rope, and hau bark makes strong rope fast. Its wood is so light it floats like cork, perfect for outrigger parts and net floats. Voyagers probably brought cuttings of their best kinds, but the seeds can also float across the sea alone, so scientists are not fully sure how hau first got here.", "uses": [ { "part": "bark", "text": "The inner bark was stripped and braided into rope and cord, called ʻili hau, used in almost every part of daily life." }, { "part": "bark", "text": "Bark fiber was also made into sandals and beaten into a kind of kapa." }, { "part": "wood", "text": "The light, tough wood became canoe outrigger parts, including the curved booms and the float." }, { "part": "wood", "text": "Chunks of the corky wood were tied to fishing nets as floats." }, { "part": "wood", "text": "A soft hau stick was one half of the fire making kit, rubbed together with a harder wood such as olomea." }, { "part": "wood", "text": "Hau was shaped into adze handles, long game spears, and the cross sticks of kites." }, { "part": "flower", "text": "Flower buds were used as a gentle laxative." }, { "part": "sap", "text": "The slimy sap was used in remedies for a congested chest and a dry throat." } ], "useTags": [ "cloth-cordage", "wood-tools", "medicine", "ceremony" ], "partTags": [ "bark", "wood", "flower", "sap" ], "facts": [ { "text": "Each flower lives for one day. It opens bright yellow in the morning, turns orange in the afternoon, and is dull red by the time it drops.", "source": "little-skolmen-hau" }, { "text": "Hawaiians made fire by rubbing a pointed stick of hard wood, such as olomea, in a groove on a piece of soft hau. Boy Scout troops in Hawaiʻi still like hau for earning their fire starting badge.", "source": "little-skolmen-hau" }, { "text": "Hau seeds can sit in salt water for months and still sprout. That is exactly why scientists argue about it. It could have floated to Hawaiʻi without any help.", "source": "plant-pono" }, { "text": "Hau was so valuable that you could not just go cut some. Accounts say you needed permission from the chief first.", "source": "plant-pono" }, { "text": "Those grass skirts sold to visitors across the Pacific are often not grass at all. Many are made of hau bark fiber.", "source": "little-skolmen-hau" }, { "text": "Wherever a long hau branch touches the ground, it grows roots. One tree can turn into a tangle so thick that a person cannot push through it.", "source": "little-skolmen-hau" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "The kapu sign on the shore", "text": "This is a recorded custom from old Hawaiʻi. Fishing near shore was not open all the time. The konohiki, the person who managed the land for the chief, could close the shallow sea so fish had time to spawn and grow. The sign was simple. Branches of hau were set all along the shore.\n\nEveryone who saw the hau branches knew the shallow water was kapu. People went out to the deep sea fishing grounds instead. The old account says that breaking this kapu could be punished by death. When the branches were taken away, the kapu was lifted and people fished near shore again. Hau was a stop sign that protected the fish.", "kinolau": "" }, "today": "You can still find hau along streams and beaches on every island, often as a huge tangled thicket. People train it over trellises to make shady arbors, plant it as a windbreak, and carve the wood into bowls. Cultural practitioners still strip the bark for cordage. Books do not agree on its status. Some list it as a canoe plant, some as native, and some as both.", "grow": { "sun": "Full sun. It handles wind and salt spray.", "water": "Not fussy. It grows in dry or wet ground once it settles in.", "planting": "Push a branch cutting into the soil. It roots easily, even as a living fence post.", "harvest": "Grows fast. Prune hard and plant it far from pipes, sidewalks, and buildings or it becomes a thicket." }, "related": [ { "slug": "niu", "why": "The other rope plant. Coconut husk for ʻaha, hau bark for quick cord." }, { "slug": "milo", "why": "Its close relative in the hibiscus family, and also debated." }, { "slug": "ulu", "why": "Hau wood for the outrigger float, ʻulu sap to seal the hull." } ], "images": [ { "file": "hau-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/hau/hau-01", "alt": "The pale branches of an old hau tree twist and loop like rope under a low roof of leaves beside a beach in Kīhei, Maui.", "creditId": "c-hau-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "hau-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/hau/hau-02", "alt": "A fresh hau flower with five bright yellow petals and a dark maroon center lies on dry brown leaves.", "creditId": "c-hau-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "hau-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/hau/hau-03", "alt": "A fallen hau flower has turned from yellow to dusty orange red, the color it takes on by evening.", "creditId": "c-hau-03", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 } ], "sources": [ "little-skolmen-hau", "bishop-ethnobotany", "plant-pono", "wehewehe", "thrum-1907", "mnbg", "canoeplants-com" ], "status": "debated" }, { "slug": "auhuhu", "nameHaw": "ʻAuhuhu", "pronunciation": "ow-HOO-hoo", "nameCommon": "Fish poison plant", "nameSci": "Tephrosia purpurea", "family": "Fabaceae", "originRegion": "Tropical Asia and Pacific", "originMapKey": "sea", "carriedAs": "Seeds", "hook": "The plant that puts fish to sleep", "whyInCanoe": "Most canoe plants were food. This one was a fishing tool. A handful of pounded ʻauhuhu could stun the fish in a tide pool so they could be picked up by hand, with no hook, no net, and no harm to the people who ate them.", "uses": [ { "part": "leaf", "text": "Leaves were pounded with the rest of the plant and scattered in tide pools to stun fish." }, { "part": "seed", "text": "The pods and seeds carry the fish stunning chemical too, so they went into the mix." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "The pounded plant was also packed into holes in the reef where fish were hiding." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "Leaves and leaf buds were ground with salt and coconut and put on cuts and itchy skin." } ], "useTags": [ "food", "medicine" ], "partTags": [ "leaf", "seed" ], "facts": [ { "text": "Fishers crushed the plant with a pestle or just a beach rock and scattered it in a tide pool. Small fish soon floated to the top and could be picked up by hand.", "source": "primitiveways-fish-toxins" }, { "text": "The fish were drugged, not killed. Any fish that got missed or washed out of the pool woke up and swam away.", "source": "primitiveways-fish-toxins" }, { "text": "The chemical stuns fish but not mammals. People ate the catch with no ill effects.", "source": "bishop-ethnobotany" }, { "text": "The active chemical is called tephrosin. It belongs to the same chemical family as rotenone, which the world later used as a bug killer and which wildlife agencies still use to clear invasive fish from lakes.", "source": "wikipedia-rotenone" }, { "text": "Do not try this. Hawaiʻi law today bans putting fish poisons in the water without a permit, and the law lists this plant by its scientific name.", "source": "hrs-188-23" }, { "text": "Each plant lives only a year or two. It drops so many seeds that new plants are usually sprouting before the old one dies.", "source": "bishop-plantcare-auhuhu" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "Hola, fishing with a plant", "text": "No single story about ʻauhuhu has come down to us, so here is the customary practice instead. The plant has other names, such as ʻauhola and hola. Hola is also the word for fishing this way. The Hawaiian dictionary gives a line from Niʻihau that says to go hola fishing in the daytime. A point on the Kohala coast of Hawaiʻi Island is even named ʻAuhuhu, after the plant.\n\nHola fishing worked in small, closed waters such as tide pools and holes in the reef. It did not break the reef and it did not waste fish, because fish that were left behind recovered. It took real knowledge to use the right plant in the right place and in the right amount.", "kinolau": "" }, "today": "ʻAuhuhu still grows wild in dry, rocky places, and native plant nurseries sell it as a tough little shrub for dry gardens. Fishing with it is now against the law without a permit. Today it is grown for its small purple and white pea flowers and for the story it tells.", "grow": { "sun": "Full sun. It likes hot, dry, rocky spots.", "water": "Keep soil moist until it is established, then water very little. Soil must drain well.", "planting": "Sow the seeds from the dry pods. It will reseed itself after that.", "harvest": "Fast and short lived, about 1 to 2 years. Grow it to look at, never to put in water." }, "related": [ { "slug": "ki", "why": "Ti leaves on a rope herded fish. ʻAuhuhu put them to sleep." }, { "slug": "ipu", "why": "Gourds floated the nets and held the hooks." }, { "slug": "niu", "why": "Coconut fiber made the nets and lines." } ], "images": [ { "file": "auhuhu-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/auhuhu/auhuhu-01", "alt": "A low ʻauhuhu shrub on the islet of Mokoliʻi shows feathery leaves made of many small leaflets and thin tan seed pods.", "creditId": "c-auhuhu-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "auhuhu-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/auhuhu/auhuhu-02", "alt": "One small purple pea flower opens on a thin stem of ʻauhuhu above soft gray green leaflets.", "creditId": "c-auhuhu-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1067 }, { "file": "auhuhu-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/auhuhu/auhuhu-03", "alt": "A bushy, knee high Tephrosia purpurea shrub with many thin upright stems grows alone in a dry, rocky streambed.", "creditId": "c-auhuhu-03", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1067 } ], "sources": [ "bishop-ethnobotany", "primitiveways-fish-toxins", "kumukahi-lawaia", "wehewehe", "bishop-plantcare-auhuhu", "hawaiian-native-plants-auhuhu", "wikipedia-tephrosin", "wikipedia-rotenone", "hrs-188-23" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "ki", "nameHaw": "Kī", "pronunciation": "KEE", "nameCommon": "Ti", "nameSci": "Cordyline fruticosa", "family": "Asparagaceae", "originRegion": "Southeast Asia and Melanesia", "originMapKey": "newguinea", "carriedAs": "Stem cuttings. Green ti almost never sets seed", "hook": "One leaf, a hundred jobs", "whyInCanoe": "Kī was the plastic wrap, the raincoat, the dinner plate, and the lucky charm of old Hawaiʻi, all in one plant. It travels well too. A piece of stem will root almost anywhere, so it was easy to carry and easy to plant on arrival.", "uses": [ { "part": "leaf", "text": "Leaves wrapped food for cooking in the imu, and they still wrap laulau today." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "Leaves served as plates and cups and kept stored food cool and clean." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "Leaves were made into rain capes, sandals, hula skirts, and house thatch." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "Ti leaves tied along the ropes of a hukilau net helped scare fish toward the net." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "Leaves were worn or carried for protection, and kahuna used them in ceremonies." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "A leaf wrapped around a warm stone made a hot pack for sore muscles." }, { "part": "root", "text": "The thick root was baked until sweet and eaten as a treat or in times of famine." }, { "part": "root", "text": "After Western contact, baked and mashed root was fermented and distilled into a liquor called ʻōkolehao." } ], "useTags": [ "food", "cloth-cordage", "medicine", "ceremony" ], "partTags": [ "leaf", "root" ], "facts": [ { "text": "The green ti of Hawaiʻi cannot make babies the usual way. A 2007 study crossed ti plants from across the Pacific and found that the Eastern Polynesian kind is sterile, so every plant grew from a cutting of a cutting, all the way back to the canoes.", "source": "hinkle-2007" }, { "text": "Hukilau fishing gets its name from this plant. Huki means pull, and the lau was a long rope hung with ti leaves that fishers dragged through the water to herd fish into the net.", "source": "wehewehe" }, { "text": "Kids in old Hawaiʻi slid down steep grassy hills sitting on ti leaves. That is not the same as hōlua, the famous sport that used a wooden sled on a special course.", "source": "canoeplants-com" }, { "text": "The name ʻōkolehao means iron bottom. It comes from the iron pots off sailing ships that were turned into stills for ti root liquor.", "source": "wehewehe" }, { "text": "Ti leaves have their own word. Lāʻī is short for lau kī, which simply means ti leaf.", "source": "wehewehe" }, { "text": "The Hawaiian dictionary says green ti leaves are still believed to protect people from spirits. Many families still plant kī around the house for that reason.", "source": "wehewehe" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "The leaf that guards", "text": "These are traditions and beliefs, shared here with respect. Kī is said to be sacred to Lono, a god of farming, and to Laka, the goddess of hula. It was a sign of high rank and divine power. Kahuna wore ti leaves as lei or clothing when they led ceremonies. People wore or carried the leaves to keep away harm and to call in good.\n\nOne belief is still told at swimming holes today. Before you jump into a quiet freshwater pool, lay a ti leaf on the water. If it floats, the pool is safe. If it sinks, a moʻo, a water guardian spirit, is home and you should stay out. Whether or not you believe it, it is a good habit to stop and look before you leap.", "kinolau": "" }, "today": "Kī is everywhere in Hawaiʻi. It wraps laulau, decorates tables, and becomes lei and hula skirts. Many families still plant green ti by the house for good luck. Garden shops sell red, pink, and striped kinds too, but the plain green one is the canoe plant.", "grow": { "sun": "Sun or part shade.", "water": "Regular water. It likes moist soil that drains.", "planting": "Cut a piece of stem and plant it standing up or lying flat in the soil. It roots easily.", "harvest": "Pick lower leaves as you need them once the plant is leafy. Leave the top to keep growing." }, "related": [ { "slug": "ko", "why": "Cane tops on the hōlua course, ti leaves under the kids on the hill." }, { "slug": "ape", "why": "Both were planted to guard a home from harm." }, { "slug": "auhuhu", "why": "Ti leaves herded fish into the net. ʻAuhuhu put them to sleep." } ], "images": [ { "file": "ki-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ki/ki-01", "alt": "Sunlight glows through the broad, glossy green leaves of a kī plant at Haleakalā National Park on Maui.", "creditId": "c-ki-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1195 }, { "file": "ki-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ki/ki-02", "alt": "Smooth, bright green ti leaves as long as a forearm fan out from the tops of young kī plants in a Maui nursery.", "creditId": "c-ki-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "ki-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ki/ki-03", "alt": "A person sitting on a woven mat holds one end of a ti leaf lei with their toes and twists the green strands into a rope with both hands.", "creditId": "c-ki-03", "role": "culture", "w": 1600, "h": 1067 }, { "file": "ki-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ki/ki-04", "alt": "An old black and white photo shows a bearded Hawaiian man in a shaggy rain cape of ti leaves carrying two large gourd containers in nets on a shoulder pole.", "creditId": "c-ki-04", "role": "culture", "w": 846, "h": 643 }, { "file": "ki-05.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/ki/ki-05", "alt": "Tall green kī plants with tufts of long leaves at the tips of thin stems rise above ferns on a wet Maui hillside.", "creditId": "c-ki-05", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 } ], "sources": [ "bishop-ethnobotany", "ntbg", "wehewehe", "hinkle-2007", "canoeplants-com", "kapiolani-cc-ki", "dartmouth-folklore-moo", "wikipedia-okolehao" ], "status": "canoe" }, { "slug": "kou", "nameHaw": "Kou", "pronunciation": "KOH-oo", "nameCommon": "Kou", "nameSci": "Cordia subcordata", "family": "Boraginaceae", "originRegion": "Indo Pacific coasts", "originMapKey": "indopacific", "carriedAs": "Seeds, though it was already here", "hook": "The canoe plant that was already here", "whyInCanoe": "For a long time everyone listed kou as a canoe plant, and it made sense. It grew around houses and villages, not deep in wild forest. It was useful, it grows across Polynesia, and nobody had found old kou pollen in Hawaiʻi. Then scientists dug into a cave on Kauaʻi and found kou that was thousands of years older than the first canoe. Voyagers may still have carried it too, but kou beat them here.", "uses": [ { "part": "wood", "text": "The soft but lasting wood was carved into ʻumeke, the bowls that held poi, plus cups, dishes, and platters." }, { "part": "wood", "text": "Special bowls for a firstborn child were made of kou." }, { "part": "flower", "text": "The orange flowers were strung into lei." }, { "part": "seed", "text": "The small seeds were eaten." }, { "part": "leaf", "text": "Aged leaves gave a warm brown dye for kapa, and fishermen used it to dye their fishing lines." } ], "useTags": [ "wood-tools", "light-dye", "food" ], "partTags": [ "wood", "flower", "seed", "leaf" ], "facts": [ { "text": "At Makauwahi Cave on Kauaʻi, scientists found kou fruits buried in mud and dated eight of them. They were between about 5,300 and 5,900 years old, thousands of years before any person reached Hawaiʻi.", "source": "burney-2001" }, { "text": "A 1989 tree handbook said no fossil kou pollen had ever been found in Hawaiʻi, and counted that as evidence that people brought it. The cave study showed why. Kou makes very little pollen, so it left only traces, but its fruits were everywhere.", "source": "burney-2001" }, { "text": "Kou was not the only surprise in that cave. The same dig showed that hala, another plant once credited to the voyagers, was also growing on Kauaʻi before people.", "source": "burney-2001" }, { "text": "Kou bowls were prized because the wood adds no taste to food. Koa and other native woods can make poi taste bad.", "source": "little-skolmen-kou" }, { "text": "How did it get here without a canoe? Kou fruits float, and ocean currents can carry them very far.", "source": "wikipedia-cordia-subcordata" }, { "text": "In the 1800s a moth arrived whose caterpillars eat kou leaves. It killed so many trees that kou almost vanished from the islands.", "source": "wikipedia-cordia-subcordata" } ], "moolelo": { "title": "The shade tree by the house", "text": "No single famous story about kou has come down to us, so here is how people remember living with it. Kou has a wide, thick crown of big leaves, and it grows fast. Hawaiians planted it near their houses and along the shore for shade. It is said that women sat in that cool shade to beat kapa and string lei together while they talked through the day.\n\nThat habit of planting kou by the house is part of why people were so sure it came in a canoe. Most plants that grow right around a village were brought there by someone. Kou fooled everybody. It was native all along, and people simply loved it enough to plant it close to home.", "kinolau": "" }, "today": "Kou is making a comeback as a shade tree in parks, along streets, and at beach parks, because it handles salt, wind, and drought. Woodworkers still treasure the striped wood, but it is in short supply. Look for the orange flowers, and do not mix it up with kou haole, the Geiger tree, which has rough leaves and darker flowers and arrived much later. Most plant lists now call kou indigenous, which means native to Hawaiʻi and to other places too.", "grow": { "sun": "Full sun. Happy near the beach.", "water": "Water until it is established. After that it handles drought, wind, and salt.", "planting": "Grows easily and quickly from seed. Give it room, about 25 to 30 feet tall and wide.", "harvest": "A fast shade tree. Pick the orange flowers for lei once it starts to bloom." }, "related": [ { "slug": "kamani", "why": "Another shoreline tree carved into bowls that never flavored the food." }, { "slug": "milo", "why": "The other bowl tree with a question mark over how it arrived." }, { "slug": "niu", "why": "Another plant whose fruit can float to a new island by itself." } ], "images": [ { "file": "kou-01.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/kou/kou-01", "alt": "A kou tree with a bent trunk and a wide umbrella of green leaves stands alone on a lawn in front of the blue ocean in Kīhei, Maui.", "creditId": "c-kou-01", "role": "hero", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "kou-02.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/kou/kou-02", "alt": "Crinkled bright orange kou flowers and buds grow beside a cluster of dry, dark brown seed capsules.", "creditId": "c-kou-02", "role": "detail", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 }, { "file": "kou-03.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/kou/kou-03", "alt": "A deep, round Hawaiian bowl carved from dark and golden kou wood has small butterfly shaped patches where a crack was mended long ago.", "creditId": "c-kou-03", "role": "culture", "w": 1600, "h": 1624 }, { "file": "kou-04.webp", "base": "assets/img/plants/kou/kou-04", "alt": "A ruffled orange kou flower, thin as crepe paper, opens above large green leaves with pale veins.", "creditId": "c-kou-04", "role": "gallery", "w": 1600, "h": 1200 } ], "sources": [ "burney-2001", "little-skolmen-kou", "bishop-ethnobotany", "wehewehe", "mnbg", "plant-pono", "canoeplants-com", "wikipedia-cordia-subcordata" ], "status": "reclassified" } ]