Invasive plant mislabeled for native plant at Oahu big box store
By Arielle Argel
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HONOLULU (KITV) — A big box store sold what they thought was the Hawaiian native plant, called Mamaki. However, once the plant was purchased, the plant owner noticed it did not look right.
“They had posted it and they said, ‘Is this Mamaki or is this some different variation that we don’t know about?’ And then someone on Big Island saw it and sent it over to us. We looked at it and it looked like the West Indian Wood Nettle. We reported that to the Department of Agriculture,” said Erin Bishop, the outreach coordinator for the Oahu Invasive Species Committee (OISC).
The West Indian Wood Nettle is invasive to Hawaii. In 2012, the Department of Agriculture (DOA) put out a pest advisory for the plant. If you look at the leaves of the plants you can see the difference. The West Indian Wood Nettle has more ridges and has one main vein, while the Mamaki has three main veins. In 2012, the Department of Agriculture put out a pest advisory for the plant.
“It grows really quickly, it seeds really quickly, and it is spread by water and wind. So it has a lot of dispersal methods. It likes to grow in sort of open and disturbed areas. So it would be a pest of mostly agricultural sites and that’s something that farmers have enough trouble as it is, so they don’t need another weed they have to control,” said Bishop.
Where the plants were purchased from has not been identified. However, Bishop says that 643 Pest has checked with the store to make sure the West Indian Wood Nettles are no longer being sold. An official from the DOA says the plant most likely came here as a contaminant on another plant.
“When you are talking about contaminants, particularly seeds, this plant is a prolific seed spreader. The seeds are quite small. It’s very difficult to detect. These seeds are like dust for all intents and purposes. To be able to distinguish them from any other plant material that’s inside something that’s growing is very very difficult, providing it’s not actually growing,” said Jonathan Ho, the acting manager of the Plant Quarantine Branch for the DOA.
Ho said they were luckily able to get to all of the plants, before they could cause any harm. If you’ve accidentally bought an invasive plant, you can contact 643 Pests at 808-643-7378.
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