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!
