Is Milo (Thespesia populnea) indigenous or canoe plant (introduced by early Hawaiians)?

Nature Talk
1

Well that’s it. Most sources I saw listed it as unknown. Is there more concrete info out there or is it just not known?

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To specify, it most definitely was brought by Hawaiians. But has anyone put forward any source for them being present on island prior to Hawaiian arrival or is it just assumptions?

2

The Bishop Museum considers it a canoe plant, for what it’s worth.

3

https://www2.hawaii.edu/~eherring/hawnprop/the-popu.htm

https://data.bishopmuseum.org/ethnobotanydb/ethnobotany.php?b=d&ID=milo

Other sources saying “indigenous?”

so it’s a bit confusing. I’m assuming it’s one of those you could probably get away with putting it into a native plant landscape if you were feeling generous?

4

In many cases, questions like this depend upon what your "default” is. For example, on iNat, plants that we don’t know if they are cultivated or wild are by default wild. I know people who object to this and think any plant in a heavily altered landscape should be considered cultivated unless there is evidence against this conclusion. They want a different default answer.

If there is no clear evidence on whether a plant is indigenous or canoe, sources with different defaults will reach different conclusions.

5

I have no personal experience of Hawaii. I have no familiarity with canoe plants and apologize for asking those who do to educate me, however wanting to understand this topic I did some reading across some sources, such as this one.

As I understand it the canoe plants seem to consist of a limited number of species.

  • Is the exact number of canoe plants agreed upon? (I read multiple sources saying twenty-three and others saying “about two dozen”, which seems not incongruous.)
  • Are the names of all (if 23) known in any one language?
  • Are the plants these names refer to (if so) in scientific names agreed upon or is there some disagreement about that? (Here I know multiple things can be referred to by one common name, which can sow confusion.)
  • Are canoe plants treated as introduced on iNaturalist? (I think I am trying to understand the role of these plants today.)

Thanks for any help.

Lucy, the village idiot :)

edit to add, because I find this amazing: Did all the canoe plants “take”? Also additional resource recommends, pls, if any. (I cannot wait to tell my history loving kid about this.)

6

I know a bunch have “taken”. Hau (Hibiscus tiliaceus) and Kukui (Aleurites moluccanus) for example can behave invasively. But yet I see people put them into “native” landscaping.

I guess the question would be how much leeway do you allow indigenous peoples introductions to count as invasive or not?

if I’m remembering right too, Hala (Pandanus tectorius) used to be in this same quasi limbo state as well. It was definitely introduced by Polynesians but also could be indigenous. I think they finally found evidence that pre dated human arrival so they could count it as truly indigenous. (By the whole wind-wave-wing definition)

7

I don’t think canoe plant is a very strict definition. So I am not surprised to hear differing numbers for the list

In terms of naming you’d probably have many. A lot of the Polynesian introduction are found across the pacific. So you’d find differing names for each one depending on the specific region.

I prefer the scientific names, mostly yeah because with the common or Hawaiian names you can get a mess pretty quickly. Especially when two plants/animals are given the same name. (Are you referring to Opelu or Opelu? Perhaps you were looking for Ahinahina or Ahinahina? Actually there’s Ahinahina too)

I’d have to look into how iNaturalist treats them.

8

You didn’t specify in your original post, but it sounds like the context here is about native gardening/restoration? Or is it just curiosity? It would be helpful to know more about why this question is important to you.

9

Oh lol

Yeah it’s a mix. It’s important for me since I try to replace non native trees with natives in my area (ie every time an introduced dies or falls I try have a seedling ready). And this one is kind of a grey area for that. If it’s indigenous (got here without humans) I’d feel comfortable using it. If it was a canoe plant and only got here by Polynesians I won’t count it. I don’t count canoe plants as truly native by my definitions. The “indigenous?” Throws a wrench in my plans. But I guess sometimes just gotta accept “close enough”

10

Just to introduce a little more confusion, in the continental U.S. the name Milo is used for a short crop form of Sorghum bicolor, a species that apparently evolved in Africa. Some forms of S. bicolor can be a serious weed but also there are cultivated forms.

11

I think I saw that when searching up to see if this has been discussed before. I was a bit confused to see people talking about bird seed.