Flowers. Leaves & ripe fruits. Wild plant(s) along rocky coastline. Cultivated plants. (All photographs, including header, courtesy of Forest & Kim Starr CC BY 2.0).

Growth Requirements

General

    Lycium carolinianum var. sandwicense is a great groundcover for coastal landscapes. Inland, it does well in an elevated rock garden of cinder, crushed coral, or sand along with other native coastal plants or in a container; fill the container with crushed coral, cinder, sand, or a mix of these media. ʻŌhelo kai will grow in clay-dominant soil but generally doesn't do as well as those grown in the above-mentioned media. 

    ʻŌhelo kai should be placed in full sun since it does poorly in shaded sites. If planted in the ground, water initially for 1-2 months to get the plant established and then stop watering unless you see obvious signs of drought stress such as extensive leaf loss. Do not overwater this xeric plant; if you do, it will likely die. Plants usually begin to flower and fruit within a year of planting. ʻŌhelo kai is tolerant of extreme heat, drought, strong winds, salt spray, and temporary exposure to seawater.

    ʻŌhelo kai does not need much if any fertilizer and over-fertilizing can result in spindly plants with papery leaves. Consider, instead, occasionally (once every month or two) spraying the plant with seawater which seems to provide it with nutrients and deter pests. ʻŌhelo kai can tolerate moderate hand-pruning to remove dead or pest-infested stems or maintain a desired shape. 

Pests and Diseases

    Snails and slugs can severely damage ʻōhelo kai, particularly young plants or new plantings. Flea beetles too can chew on the plant's leaves. Sap-sucking insects such as aphids, mealybugs, mites, thrips, scale insects, and whiteflies will occasionally infest plants. These infestations are more common on "unhappy" plants such as those kept in shade, over-watered or over-fertilized, or placed in a wind-free site. Refer to the Pests and Diseases page for ways to deal with each of these pests. 

Special Features and Information

General

    ʻŌhelo kai is in the Nightshade family (Solanaceae) which has about 98 genera and 2,700 species worldwide [WikipediA;Solanaceae]. Other native Hawaiian Solanaceae include four species of ʻaiea (in the endemic genus Nothocestrum) and five Solanum species [Flora of the Hawaiian Islands]. 

    ʻŌhelo kai is closely related to the nutritious wolfberry or goji berry (Lycium barbarum, L. chinense). Other edible relatives include: tomato, potato, eggplant, cape gooseberry or pohā, tomatillo, and green and chili peppers. There are also some ornamental garden favorites like petunias and the spectacular Golden chalice vine (Solandra maxima).

    However, as the name implies, the Nightshade family also contains some extremely deadly plants with sometimes sinister names like: the Apple of Sodom, Angel's trumpet, Porcupine tomato, Thorn apple, Devil's fig, Devil's apple, and Five-Minute plant. Other relatives containing toxic chemicals are: mandrake (Mandragora officinarum), Jimsonweed (Datura stramonium), and tobacco (Nicotiana spp.). The "Queen of Toxins," and one of the deadliest is Belladonna (Atropa belladonna), which contains tropane alkaloids. It is also called Devil's Berries, Death Cherries, or Deadly Nightshade [WikipediA;Solanaceae]. 

Hawaiian Name

    ʻŌhelo kai translates to "ʻōhelo by the sea." ʻŌhelo (Vaccinium spp.) is an endemic species trio of Hawaiian shrubs related to blueberries (but having red, orange, or yellow rather than blue fruits) that grow in montane or subalpine habitats. ʻŌhelo is in the Heath family, Ericaceae, while ʻōhelo kai is in the Nightshade family, Solanaceae, and, therefore, the two plants are not closely related; think blueberry vs tomato. Presumably, it was the similarly bright red fruits of both plants that led Hawaiians to give the two species similar names.

Etymology

    Lycium comes from lykion, the Greek name for a shrub from Lycia (southwestern Turkey) and used by Carl Linnaeus (Carl von Linné), the father of modern taxonomy [Wagner et al. 1990]. The species name, sandwicensis, refers to the "Sandwich Islands," as the Hawaiian Islands were once called and named by James Cook on one of his voyages in the 1770s. James Cook named the islands to honor John Montagu (The fourth Earl of Sandwich) for supporting Cook's voyages [Gledhill 2008].