Plant Life : Common plants at Samoa Trust Estate Corporation plantation, Mulifanua, Upolu

Abstract

Samoa is home to abundant plant life including indigenous species and some foreign introduced plant species. A majority of the foreign plants were introduced to Samoa in the pre-independence era through arrival of the early missionaries, Germans and Japanese, for various purposes from medicinal use to construction. These plants can be found across all the four islands; Upolu, Savai’i, Manono and Apolima. As part of the EU-GIZ Adapting to Climate Change and Sustainable Energy (ACSE) programme, a component of the Energy Bill and Sustainable Bioenergy, Samoa project focuses on biomass resource assessments at the Samoa Trust Estates Corporation (STEC) Plantation at Mulifanua, Upolu. Through fieldwork for biomass resource assessments at the non-leased land areas within the STEC Mulifanua plantation, eight common plants were identified and further scientific analysis on each was conducted by the Scientific Research Organisation of Samoa (SROS). SROS laboratory tests took place over a period of 14 days using the Quality Management System implemented by SROS and which also meets the requirements of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standards, ISO/IEC 17025 (2005). Thus, this publication provides a brief description of these plants as well as some data on moisture content and energy content under different conditions.