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Hawaii Gardening

What do Ohia seeds look like?

20 years ago

With all the folks interested in Ohia Lehua trees, I thought I'd go out and see if there were seeds to save on the yellow ohia in the yard. It has been blooming for awhile now and the bees are real busy on it all day long.

There's bunches of really small seed pods - a bit bigger than a black peppercorn. Inside those, there is really small seeds (?) that almost look like sawdust. Is that the ohia seeds? They seem awfully small to grow a tree!

Has anyone ever germinated an ohia tree from seeds?

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Comments (6)

David_Vermont
20 years ago
Ohia seeds are very small. I saw some very young seedlings at a Nature Conservancy nursery, they seemed to have luck starting them from seed. Good luck.
Editrix
20 years ago
Hi hotzcatz ...

Yes, those little sawdust-like things are the seeds. Amazing, isn't it? They are quite easy to propagate; witness all the tiny ohias that come up in the pots in my nursery! *G*
The easiest way is to pick the clusters of pods when they start to split open, and shake them into a baggie. Sprinkle the resulting "sawdust" onto most any growing medium (I've used potting soil, vermiculite, and perlite with equal success) press them into the surface (don't over) and keep it damp and partially shaded (about 60%)until the seedlings are an inch or so tall. You should get a single stem with little round shiny leaves. At that point prick them out and transplant to small pots. If you want to keep them small, leave them in smallish pots ... if you want them to grow fast, keep moving them to larger pots, and plant out when they are about 2 feet tall. Ohia have MASSIVE root systems, and don't like to have them disturbed, so don't let them get rootbound unless you're going for bonsai.
AN IMPORTANT NOTE: Like many semi-tropical native plants, ohia DO NOT come true from seed. So if you're looking for a bunch of yellow ohia, you're not going to get them. The only way to get a specific color is from cuttings or air-layering. If you'd like that info, let me know.

Aloha pumehana ...

Editrix
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hotzcatz
Original Author
20 years ago
Thank you Editrix,

I'll go collect some seeds now that I know what they look like. There's some folks who want to try starting ohia from seeds, so I'll gather them and send them on.

A hui hou,
Cathy
Dianna Allen
7 years ago
All my sub tropical plants here on the Big Island of Hawaii, I grow from seed. For instance, the white indigent hibiscus ..i have had a great success growing from seed and they bloom continuously throughout the year, also my loquats that I grow from seed also have a great return in 2-3 years and they are bearing..i basically have been doing tho process for about 5 years and my customers love the plants.
steiconi
7 years ago
indigent hibiscus...hee hee hee

I assume you mean indigenous. or maybe indignant, if they're upset about something.
Dianna Allen
7 years ago
Yes, I meant indigenous, my phone changed it, sorry typo, basically plants that originated from Hawaii.

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