NOTE - THIS PROTO-PAGE IS STILL IN THE EARLY STAGES OF CONSTRUCTION!

The word poroporo was thought at one time to to have been derived from a Proto-Oceanic word, reconstructed as *mpodo, however further research by the authors of The Lexicon of Proto Oceanic has indicated that the Solanum species to which this word typically refers were not present before contact with European and other newcomers over the last few centuries in the areas where the modern terms on which the reconstruction was based. It's probable that the apparently cognate words were introduced along with the plants bearing their names at some later period. The word seems rather to have originated in the Fiji-Rotuma area (the modern forms are poro in Rotuman and boro in Fijian) during the development of the Proto Central Pacific branch of Austronesian, still a long time ago (perhaps as much as 3,000 years), but more recently than Proto Oceanic.

Within Polynesia, including Aotearoa, the reflexes of *polo have been used to name a variety of members of the nightshade family (Solanaceae) and a few other plants that have similar berries (like the endemic "pokeberry" Phytolacca sandwicensis, not a member of the Solanaceae, in Hawaii). These names have been conferred on introduced as well as native plants. Thus throughout its range in Polynesia, Solanum nigrum, "black nightshade", and the similar S. nodiflorum and S. americanum, whether native or introduced, are likely to be known polo, poroporo, pöpolo, or some cognate term. One interesting plant is the cultivated variety S. viride cv. anthropophagorum -- the "cannibals' solanum" according to its Latin name, a Polynesian introduction into the Cook Islands, known there as poro'iti (the Tahitian porohiti).

The photograph below is of a plant of one of the Hawai'ian pöpolo, Solanum americanum, in the Limahili National Botanical Garden, Hanalei, Hawaii.