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Gouania vitifolia
Also called Oʻahu chewstick
Oahu chewstick is a rare, critically endangered climbing shrub or woody vine from the buckthorn family, endemic to Hawaii, with fewer than 50 known wild plants. It is not a common garden or houseplant, so care guidance is based on general knowledge of dry-to-mesic tropical forest climbers.
Gouania vitifolia, also known as gray Oʻahu chewstick, is a critically endangered flowering plant in the buckthorn family, Rhamnaceae that is endemic to Hawaii. There are less than 50 known remaining plants, many of which are believed to have perished in a 2018 wildfire.
Gouania vitifolia inhabits dry, coastal mesic, and mixed mesic forests on Oʻahu (Waiʻanae Mountains), the Island of Hawaiʻi (Kaʻū district), and west Maui. However, the only currently known populations are on O'ahu and Hawaiʻi, with no reported occurrences in Maui since the 1800s. It was thought to be extinct before its rediscovery in 1991.
Gouania australiana · Hairyfruit chewstick · Whiteroot · Smoothfruit chewstick · Chewstick
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Gouania vitifolia 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.
