Monday, September 28, 2009

Another Native Hawaiian Plant You Probably Never Heard Of


Neneleau
The Hawaiian sumac. Found along the Saddle road, just about where the houses end on the Hilo side. Also found along the Hamakua coast. As always, click for a larger image.

3 comments:

Keahi Pelayo said...

Thank you for continuing my education.
Aloha,
Keahi

Unknown said...

Thnx for your pix, John. Are you familiar with the string-looking native plant Kaunaoa? The Mauna Kea Beach Hotel is located on Kauanoa Bay and the beach there used to have lots of it but the hotel management considered it unsightly, I'm told, and eradicated it. A friend of mine attributes his cure from cancer to a daily tonic made from the beachgrown kaunaoa (as opposed to that growing farther inland) but I haven't seen any growing on beaches these days.

Have you seen it growing at the beach? We have lots of it in the Kapoho-Kaimu area growing over Christmas berry but none at the beach. It's a yellow-green string vine, no leaves that I'm aware of.

John Powell said...

Unfortunately, I haven't been looking for it.
Makalawena, maybe. Behind the dunes.
I've seen it mostly in South Kona.

Not at the beach, but I think there's some about a mile up Hina Lani, near a trail (north-south). The trail's hard to see until you understand that the haole koa and xmas berry are more plentiful in the old trail, because it was disturbed and broken down). So in places the bushes mark the trail. You have to transverse a'a lava, which is easy if you watch every step and take it as slowly as you need to. It goes off south and is quite easy to spot in the open (unvegetated) a'a. Actually I suspect there are several places on that road you can find it.