Imagine this: a tiny berry, plucked from a Japanese mountainside, hitching a ride inside a bird, crossing 4,000 miles of the Pacific, and landing on newly risen Hawaiian soil. Millions of years later, that berry becomes the ʻōhelo — a red-fruited wild blueberry treasured by native Hawaiians, feeding birds, shaping ecosystems, and holding deep cultural meaning.
That’s exactly what scientists at the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT) and the University of Florida discovered in a new study published in the American Journal of Botany, according to a release.Using DNA sleuthing, they traced Hawaii’s blueberries not to North America, as long assumed, but to temperate East Asia — specifically Vaccinium yatabei, found only in Japan.
“This is a rare pattern among Hawaii’s native plants,” said Dr. Peter W. Fritsch, co-senior author and BRIT research scientist. “Only 4% of Hawaiian plants are estimated to have come from temperate East Asia, whereas most arrived from North America or tropical regions.”…