The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Chenopodium oahuense
Also called Hawaiian goosefoot
Alaweo is a native Hawaiian shrub or small tree in the amaranth and beet family, reaching 5 to 20 m in the wild. It is grown mainly for restoration planting and erosion control, and it is tolerant of the coastal conditions it naturally inhabits.
Chenopodium oahuense is a species of flowering plant in the amaranth family known by the common names aweoweo, alaweo, alaweo huna, aheahea, ahea, ahewahewa, and kahaihai. It is endemic to Hawaii, where it occurs on all of the larger islands except for Kahoolawe. It is also found on Lisianski Island, Laysan, the French Frigate Shoals, Necker Island, and Nīhoa.
This species is a shrub that can reach 5 to 20 meters in height. The fleshy, lightly hairy leaf blades have three lobes. The inflorescence is a panicle of small flowers.
This plant can be used for Hawaiian ecosystem restoration and erosion control. Sooty terns and red-footed boobies use this plant as nesting material. The Hawaiian people use the wood of this plant to make shark hooks, and the cooked leaves are eaten like (related) spinach. The bark was traditionally used for beautifying the skin; and was consumed by nursing mothers to beautify the skin during development. In addition with other native herbs it was mixed for weight gain in children.
Fat-hen · Pinyon goosefoot · Golden Goosefoot · Coastal Saltbush · Chenopodium benthamii · Pitseed goosefoot · Seaberry Saltbush · Cottony Saltbush · Sandhill goosefoot · Frosted Goosefoot · Aridland goosefoot · New Zealand fish-guts plant
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Chenopodium oahuense by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
