Yesterday we worked in the greenhouse and made cuttings of an endemic plant called Goosefoot, Chenopodium oahuense. Doesn't the leaf in the small picture to the right look a little bit like a goose foot?! It's called `Āweoweo in Hawaiian, which is also the name for the Big Eye reef fish, Priacanthus. Matt said Hawaiians made this plant-fish connection because they noticed that Goosefoot leaves smell very fishy. Since we were trimming some leaves off the cuttings anyway, I tried crushing some...and they DO smell like fresh, raw fish!
After cutting a leafy piece of Goosefoot and trimming off some leaves, we dipped the cut end into a plant hormone powder called Rootone and stuck it into a pot of sand. Rootone will speed up the growth of roots near the cut end. After enough of those roots have grown, we'll plant the `Āweoweo back into its native environment.
Matt Saunter, Ilana Nimz and Ted McKinley (the photographer) joined me, Adam and Greg in this work. We planted 3 or 4 plants in each of 65 pots; you can see how happy we are!
Saturday, May 22, 2010
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2 comments:
Hi Barbara!
The blog is cute! Thanks for putting our picture up! The characters are fun and you've got some great topics! I'm looking forward to reading more!
Ilana
Very interesting blog!
Aisha-
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