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Comment by markdown | Hacker News Reader

Great photos, thanks for sharing.

Do you know if kava and taro grow there?

Taro grows, there's even an area called "Taro Ground". I'm a fan of kava and I know Tahiti has a kava tradition. I asked one of my cousins about kava on the island and they don't know of it growing there. Given that the island was populated previously by Polynesians it's possible there is wild kava growing there somewhere. Next time I go I'm keen to look out for it. It would be interesting to try and cultivate it and make it a crop for sale in the same way Honey, Coffee, etc has become a popular export item.

I just want to say that HN continues to surprise and amaze me. An article about pitcairn is upvoted (amazing enough in itself) and then we get a decendent of the original mutineers chime in and offers to contact their cousins on the island for specific answers.

That's great to hear. Yes, both those crops were "canoe plants" that Polynesians took with them wherever they went.

Kava doesn't seed so has trouble growing in the wild unless conditions are perfect, in which case ancient stands of them might still be alive. In Hawaii, long after the missionaries tried to eradicate kava, some of the old cultivars were rediscovered in the 90's from old kava stands found growing deep in national park forests.

But yes if you did find kava growing there, it would be a rare cultivar and given its long shelf-life once dried and packaged, a great crop to commercialise on that island.

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