Mehamehame is dioecious with clusters of small male (top photograph) or female flowers (directly below) on separate trees. However, there are a few instances of seemingly monoecious trees. Pollinated female flowers develop into small round fruits that turn red as they ripen. The new leaves of mehamehame often have a reddish or bronze tint, turning green with age but sometimes retaining a red midrib or petiole. This cultivated mehamehame is about eight years old and producing flowers. A wild O‘ahu mehamehame with half its trunk dead (right side) and half still alive; note the slender sucker, a consequence of relentless attacks by black twig borers (Photograph courtesy of Joel Lau ©.). Mehamehame is among the largest native trees in Hawai‘i as this tree on Kaua‘i illustrates (Photograph courtesy of Kenneth R. Wood (NTBG) CC BY-NC 4.0.). While living mehamehame are incredibly rare, because of their extremely dense wood, it's not unusual to find mehamehame corpses in places they grew in the past (Photograph courtesy of Joel Lau ©.). 

Growth Requirements

General

    Mehamehame is a fast-growing tree with frequent and consequential pests. Therefore, you need to make a choice if you wish to grow this rare and beautiful tree. Purchase a very tall ladder so you can properly care for your mehamehame if you intend to plant it in a landscape. Or, purposely stunt your mehamehame by confining its roots to a large container.

    Mehamehame does best in a site with full sunlight for all or most of the day. However, young plants can tolerate and will continue to grow (more slowly) in shaded spaces. If you intend to plant your mehamehame in the ground, select a site with plenty of surrounding space (to accommodate it mature size) and with a lot of wind (to deter attacks by black twig borers and whiteflies); a tree planted in a windless and humid site will have the most problems.

    While mehamehame has some drought tolerance, any soil moisture deficiency will stress your plant, making it more vulnerable to black twig borer (and other pests) attacks. I (Koebele) always tried to keep the surface soil dry most of the time (to reduce humidity and possible stem rot) while also keeping the subsurface soil (1 to 2 inch down) moist. As with most native Hawaiian plants, the soil at your planting site, or the media in your mehamehame's container, should easily drain away excess water. A good way to ensure this is to plant your mehamehame on a slope (mimicking where they are often found in the wild) or raised mound, or use a media mix containing at least 33% black cinders or perlite. Mehamehame don't seem to be too fussy about media or soil type, since I have grown them in media mixes ranging from 33% cinder or perlite (along with sphagnum peat moss and vermiculite) to 100% cinder as well as clay-dominant (but well-drained) soil. I have never attempted to grow mehamehame in coralline or sandy soils, nor anywhere close to the ocean.

    In the ground, mehamehame grow fast, increasing one or more feet (30 cm) a year. Mehamehame in pots also grow quickly and should be regularly transferred to larger and larger pots. Myself (and others) have typically stopped these transfers at a 10 to 20 gallon (38 to 76 L) pot, which will maintain a stunted 6 to 10 foot (1.8 to 3 m) tall tree. While my in-the-ground mehamehame grew just fine without fertilizer, I routinely applied a balanced granular controlled-release fertilizer to my potted mehamehame every six months or so. After three to five years, you can expect to see the first tiny male or female flowers. Of course, if your goal is to produce seeds (for all your friends), you'll need at least one male and one female plant planted (kept) near each other. Fortunately, healthy cultivated mehamehame flower more than once a year, making pollination more likely. Be sure to place a protective mesh bag around any still-green unripe fruits you wish to harvest later, since birds will otherwise steal and eat the ripe fruits.

    It's almost inevitable that your mehamehame will experience a black twig borer attack at some point. Therefore, please review the section about this pest on the Pests & Diseases page to minimize the severity of these attacks. Particularly important is the prompt detection, removal, and disposal of any dead or dying stems so you can break the borer's reproductive cycle. 

Pests and Diseases

    Flueggea neowawraea is frequently attacked by a number of pest insects both in the wild and in cultivation. The most serious of these is the black twig borer (Xylosandrus compactus), which is primarily responsible for the species' decline in the wild, in addition to making recovery efforts (e.g., outplantings) very difficult. In cultivation, infestations of whiteflies can also be very damaging, resulting in the death and loss of many to all of a plant's leaves. Also in some cultivated settings, Chinese rose beetles will consume much of a plant's foliage in a relatively short period. Fortunately, healthy plants often recover from an attack by any of these three insects and quickly put out a new flush of foliage. However, repeated attacks (sometimes even after laborious control efforts), can ultimately result in the declining health and death of the plant. Sap-sucking pests such as aphids, mealybugs, scale insects, and spider mites also occasionally infest cultivated plants. Refer to the Pests & Diseases page for ways to deal with each of the many above-mentioned pests. 

Special Features and Information

General

    Phyllanthaceae currently contains about 2,000 species of mostly trees, shrubs, and herbs within 54 to 60 genera, some poorly defined. Most species are found in the tropics, while many can be seen in the southern temperate zone; a few species inhabit the northern temperate zone. One genus, Phyllanthus, is one of the largest genera of flowering plants with over 1,200 species. Family members are most notable for having two ovules in each locule of the ovary, a trait that distinguishes them from species in Euphorbiaceae [WikipediA;Phyllanthaceae]. 

    In addition to Flueggea neowawraea, other native Hawaiian members of Phyllanthaceae include: two endemic species of hame (Antidesma platyphyllum and Antidesma pulvinatum); and the endemic pāmakani māhū (Phyllanthus distichus).

    Flueggea is a small genus (about 14 species) of mostly dioecious trees and shrubs native to tropical and subtropical regions worldwide but with the majority of species found in the Old World [Wagner et al. 1990].

Hawaiian Name

    Joseph Rock [1974 Reprint of 1913 book] was the first person to assign a scientific name to this rare tree. In this book, he wrote:

"This very interesting and remarkable tree, for which an old native Hawaiian gave the name Mehamehame, is exceedingly rare, only three males and one female tree being in existence. In regard to the native name, the writer is not inclined to accept it. The outward appearance of the tree resembles somewhat our Hawaiian Antidesma, which are also called Hame or Mehame or Mehamehame. The old native might have easily taken it for such. It is very doubtful if the natives ever had a name for the tree, as it is peculiar to such a small area, located in a most inhospitable place on the southern flanks of the great volcano Mauna Loa on rough aa lava flows, made accessible only very recently."

    While Rock was overzealous in his assessment of the rarity of Flueggea neowawraea, Hayden [1987], in a recent treatise on the species, writes about the species' common name and generally agrees with Rock's skepticism regarding the Hawaiian name Mehamehame. Additionally, Hayden was able to find two other common names attributed to F. neowawraea on herbarium labels, Kamehame and Hamekapu‘a, both suggesting "the recognition of a particular kind of 'Antidesma.'"

    Rock did not use ʻokina nor kahakō in his 1913 book; therefore, it's impossible to tell how the "old native Hawaiian" pronounced the common name for Flueggea neowawraea. In some of the more recent literature, Mēhamehame is used instead of Mehamehame. However, to date (2026), I have been unable to find any documented reason or justification for this newer spelling.

Etymology

    Flueggea honors Johannes (Johann) Flüggé (1775–1816), a German physician and botanist in Hamburg [Wagner et al. 1990]. The species name, neowawraea, comes from the first genus name for this plant, given by  Joseph Rock [1974 Reprint of 1913 book] to honor his colleague, Heinrich Wawra, Ritter von Fernsee (1831–1887), an Austrian physician and botanist [Hayden 1987]. The prefix Neo-, Greek for "new," was added by Rock to distinguish it as a new genus.