“Colocasia esculenta”

Common Names: “taro,” “dasheen,” “elephant ear,” “cocoyam,” “eddo,” “eddoe.”

This is just a new leaf or flower emerging in the Greenhouse’s outside garden, but I had to post this today over a couple of other cool shots of carnivorous plants (Venus fly trap and pitcher plant) because of its historical relevance to our 50th state. Here is what the Missouri Botanical Garden has to say about this plant, http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=z800
“… [E]lephant's ear … is a tuberous, stemless, frost-tender perennial of the arum family (see also calla lily and jack-in-the-pulpit) which typically grows 3-6' tall and as wide. It is primarily a foliage plant with huge, heart-shaped, conspicuously-veined, downward-pointing, peltate leaves (to 2' long) on long petioles. As the common name suggests, each leaf purportedly resembles an elephant's ear. Calla lily-like flowers with yellowish-white spathes and spadixes are usually hidden by the foliage, but flowers are infrequently produced. Plants in the genus Colocasia are also commonly called taro (Colocasia esculenta is commercially grown as a food crop in Hawaii. Poi is made from the plant tubers).”

To see “taro” being cultivated, go to the plant’s species page at PhytoImages: http://phytoimages.siu.edu/cgi-bin/dol/dol_terminal.pl?taxon_name=Colocasia_esculenta&rank=binomial

Photo taken outside the SIUC Plant Biology Greenhouse, http://www.plantbiology.siu.edu/facilities/plant-biology-facilities/greenhouse/index.php

This image on PhytoImages, http://phytoimages.siu.edu/imgs/paraman1/r/Araceae_Colocasia_esculenta_93237.html

1 year ago (“Into the light”): http://365project.org/rhoing/365/2013-10-10
2 years ago (“More leaf art…”): http://365project.org/rhoing/365/2012-10-10
3 years ago (“Rowing reflections”): http://365project.org/rhoing/365/2011-10-10

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[Rick Schies]

Very pretty