Photo journal of a visit to the Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden

4/1 -
In the morning we drove to Greenwell Garden where we had a quick continental-style breakfast together before beginning our tour with Peter Van Dyke (originally from Santa Barbara!). He enthusiastically pointed out many of the Polynesian plants brought to Hawaii for their utilitarian and food uses and explained the mountain-to-sea land division (ahupua'a) that provided each district (or association of chiefs) with land to farm different crops at different elevations, access to fresh water and the ocean for fishing.

Short list of some of the plants we saw:
Kuku'I or candlenut (Aleurites moluccana) oil-rich seeds burned for lighting and strung as beads
Noni (Morinda citrifolia) strong medicine (applications for cancer treatment being studied)
Wauke (Broussonetia papyrifera) bark is soaked and pounded to make kapa cloth



Ti or ki (Cordyline fruticosa) leaves used for just about everything from lei-making, to cordage, to roof thatch, to food wrappers, to mulch
Kalo or taro (Alocasia esculenta) the main plant used for poi. According to Peter, there are over 300 names (cultivars) recorded for taro in Hawaii. He says there may be as many as 150 still growing somewhere. Greenwell has about 80 named varieties under cultivation most of it in dryland farming (these are the source material for the studies mentioned above at the Bishop Museum).
Ulu' or breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) fruits eaten fresh or roasted by humans and pigs, sap is a good glue often used as bird lime.



'Awa or kava (Piper methysticum) intoxicant
hala or screw pine (Pandanus tectorius) leaves a source of fiber for weaving and the fibrous seed coats frayed to use as brushes



We also looked very briefly at some endemic Hawaiian plants:
Halapepe (Pleomele aurea) looks very similar to dracaena, or cordyline, but has showy drooping clusters of pale flowers.



Ma'o hau hele (Hibiscus brackenridgei) which is now known only from cultivated plants



As is hau hele 'ula (Kokia drynarioides)



Ko'oloa 'ula (Abutilon menziesii) is another relative that is not known in the wild anymore.
'Aheahea (Chenopodium oahuense) tender shoots supposedly edible though the leaves smell rather strongly like fish that has been out of the water too long.

'A'ali'I or hopseed bush (Dodonea viscosa) common in horticulture now as a tough, drought-tolerant shrub.



Kolomona (Senna gaudichaudii) now rare, though a number of other sennas and caesalpinias that were introduced have become widespread.

Written By
Virginia Hayes