Moa or Upright whiskfernPsilotaceae (Whiskfern family)Indigenous to the Hawaiian Islands (All the main islands and Midway Atoll)Photo: Honolulu, OahuMedicinally, moa (Psilotum spp.) was used by the early Hawaiians for kkae paa (constipation) in newborn babies and elderly men and women. It was also mixed with other plants to treat akepau (tuberculosis, consumption), and various respiratory conditions. Additionally, extracts from moa were used as laxatives. The spores were used for diarrhea in infants and used like talcum powder to prevent chafing from loincloths called malo.Moa was also used in lei making by early Hawaiians.Early Hawaiian children would play a simple game of moa nahele (lit., chicken vegetation). "Plants in Hawaiian Culture" explains how this game was played: Two children sat or stood facing one another, each holding a branched stem of moa. These they interlocked and then slowly pulled apart until the branches of one broke. The other child, without broken branches, was the winner and announced his victory by crowing like a rooster (moa). One of the names o moa in fact means "cock's crow."EtymologyThe generic name is from the Greek psilos, naked or smooth, alluding to the smooth aerial stems without leaves.The specific epithet is from the Latin nudus, bare or naked, in reference to the naked nature of the stems.nativeplants.hawaii.edu
Species Psilotum nudum (L.) PB. Genus Psilotum Family Psilotaceae Location Berlin Botanical Gardens Berlin-Dahlem Time November 2005 Habitus Picture taken by: User:BotBln : Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.htmlGFDLGNU Free Documentation Licensetruetrue. : This file is licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.:.. This licensing tag was added to this file as part of the GFDL licensing update.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/CC-BY-SA-3.0Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0truetrue.
