Photo: Forest and Kim Starr — CC BY 3.0 us · source
Survives zone 8 through 9
Harvest calendar
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
Blueberry sweet; lingonberry/cranberry tart (cook); bilberry intense but tiny. Care: Winter protection — mulch, fleece, or a warm wall.
- Hardiness
- Zone 8–9
- Habit
- Shrub
- Edible part
- Fruit
- Ripens
- July–Sept
- Mature size
- Evergreen shrub 1–3 m; containerable while young
- Light
- Partial shade to full sun — wet montane forest
- Soil pH
- 4.0–5.5 — ⚠ STRICTLY ACID-LOVING (calcifuge). Will die on alkaline soil; use ericaceous compost + rainwater
- Environment
- Montane forest
- Native range
- Endemic to the Hawaiian Islands — found on all the main islands except Niʻihau and Kahoʻolawe, in wet forest and bog habitat at roughly 500–1,800 m elevation.
- Status
- Wild
- Years to fruit
- 2–3 yrs
- Growth speed
- Slow
- Spacing
- 150 cm (59 in) apart — about 2.3 m² (24 sq ft) per plant
- Leaf shape
- Ovate, smooth and hairless, toothed margins, 5–8 cm — the largest leaves among the three native Hawaiian ʻōhelo species.
- Root system
- Shallow and fibrous, almost entirely in the top 30–40 cm, and unusual in having few or no root hairs — the plant relies on ericoid mycorrhizal fungi for most of its water and nutrient uptake instead. Two practical consequences: it dries out fast and wants steady moisture, and it resents cultivation around the base, so mulch rather than hoe.
- Fruit description
- Bright red berries, 9–15 mm, evenly colored; edible but comparatively bland — the mildest-flavored of the three native Hawaiian ʻōhelo species.
- Propagation
- Semi-ripe cuttings in an ericaceous mix, or fresh seed. As with the other Hawaiian species, plants raised from local seed establish far better than imported stock.
- Pollination
- Self-fertile, better with a 2nd cultivar
The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.
Growing guide
Fertilizing. Benefits from a monthly half-strength foliar feed of kelp and/or fish emulsion, plus a dilute acid-forming fertilizer (e.g. Miracid) every other month to support its strict acid-soil requirement.
How it spreads. Slow-growing and long-lived (20+ years), forming a multi-stemmed clump rather than spreading; in the wild it sometimes grows epiphytically on tree-fern trunks and fallen logs instead of colonizing open ground.
Growing tips. Rarely cultivated outside Hawaiʻi; needs consistently moist, humid conditions and is deciduous, going leafless for a few weeks between October and February. Red spider mite is the main pest reported on cultivated plants.
Grow journal
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