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Colocasia esculenta
Also called Coco yam, Wild Taro, Cocoyam, Katchu, Dasheen, Eddo, Elephant's Ear
In Singapore: Taro, Yam, Cocoyam, Dasheen, Ubi Keladi, Eddoe, Elephant's Ear, Keladi, 芋, 芋头 (Naturalised in Singapore)
Taro (Colocasia esculenta) is a tropical perennial grown mainly for its starchy corm, with leaves and stems also eaten. It thrives in warm, wet conditions and is best grown in moist or waterlogged soil.
Taro (; Colocasia esculenta), also known as dasheen, is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, stems and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in African, Caribbean, Oceanian, East Asian, Southeast Asian and South Asian cultures (similar to yams).
Colocasia esculenta is thought to be native to Southern India and Southeast Asia, but is widely naturalised. Colocasia is thought to have originated in the Indomalayan realm, perhaps in East India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. It spread by cultivation eastward into Southeast Asia, East Asia and the Pacific Islands; westward to Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean Basin; and then southward and westward from there into East Africa and West Africa, where it spread to the Caribbean and Americas.
Cooked taro is 64% water, 35% carbohydrates, and contains negligible protein and fat (table). In a reference amount of 100 grams (3.5 oz), taro supplies 142 calories of food energy, and is a rich source (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) of vitamin B6 (25% DV), vitamin E (20% DV), and manganese (21% DV), while phosphorus and potassium are in moderate amounts (10–11% DV).
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Taro by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
Pet safety from the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant lists.
