Red Strawberry Guava - Waiawi Ula'ula - Psidium cattleianum
Waahila Ridge - Honolulu - Hawaii
As mentioned before on other pages The Waiawi, (Strawberry Guavas) are a big problem plant in Hawaii, but at the same time after working with this tree since 2006. I have found that it has great potential and could be turned around from being a damaging pest that push out other native plants from their natural forests into a valuable commodity.
One of the puzzling facts about the Waiawi is that they have both tasty fruits, leaves that can be used for teas, seeds that can be used for coffee substitute, and a multitude of other potential uses, but at this point money is spent not on putting it to use or new research projects to unlock its secrets, medicinal potential or life history. Instead with little success money have been spent on cumbersome manual removal and other projects directed to removing or limiting the Waiawi Problem without looking at it's deeper cause or potential.
This is why we started the Psidium Research and Development Foundation, and the Waiawi Naturals Charity Brand. By making and selling soap to fund the research into both understanding better the troubles of Waiawi in Hawaii, we hope to bring both deeper understanding of the endangered sub-tropical rainforest's of Hawaii, and put an effort to repair and protect our endangered habitats.
The Waiawi is not only a problem in Hawaii, in almost every tropical and subtropical island habitat outside of South America. The Strawberry Guavas have proven to be quick to adapt and with ease taken over pushing out local trees and plants by changing the soil chemistry and blocking out sunlight. This is why our long term goal is to help not only the habitats on the Hawaiian islands but also work to repairing and restoring Waiawi troubled forests on a global scale.
Our first Waiawi Naturals Soap, a unscented bar soap made with a blend of all natural saponified coconut, canola and olive oils and hand picked, sorted, dried, shredded and separated Waiawi Ula'ula (Psidium cattleianum) leaves and all of our Waiawi Naturals products contains Waiawi, as a testament to just one of its diverse potentials.
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Waiawi Naturals is charity brand and operated by Psidium Research and Development Foundation (PRDF) and 100% of the profit of any products created by Waiawi Naturals go to the PRDF's holistic charitable cause of research, development and saving, restoration and protection of the endangered Hawaiian Rainforest.
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