Re: Colocasia esculenta

From: "Julius Boos" <ju-bo at email.msn.com> on 1998.12.15 at 03:16:03(2822) >>Concerning C. esculenta, does anyone know what sp. of colocasia or supposed "variety" of esculenta are the tubers commonly sold in garden centers as +More "Elephant Ears"? They are not commonly grown here in Florida but I seem them in many yards "up North" in the summer. They look like a large form of C. esculenta and are fairly invasive like esculenta is.(It is an invasive weed in many Florida lakes, rivers, etc.) The only names I have seen on the packages is Colocasia sp. Thanks for any info.<< >>Eric Schmidt Orlando, FL<< Dear Eric, I have no "concrete" information on this/these cultivar/cultivars of Colocasia esculenta (I have seen what appear to be a few here in W.P.B., Florida that seem different one from the other), but they remind me of the "wild dasheen" in my homeland of Trinidad, W.I., and those were said to have originated from Fijian cultivars inported and then rejected as inferior to the two or three VERY good cultivars that had been cultivated in Trinidad LONG before, presumably since their introduction from Africa during the slave trade. The "new" ones were stoleniferous and invasive, and "itched" more than the old cultivars, and so were abandoned. (see my article on this in Aroideana Vol. 16, 1993 (1994). Good luck. Julius ju-bo@msn.com

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