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engaiauden

Is it really a Colocasia gigantea?

engaiauden
13 years ago

Dear Sirs,

I am an Italian naturalistic writer and photographer and

I've bought a rhizome on E-Bay one month a go from a man who

said it belongs to a Colocasia gigantea he personally

collected in Asia.

Now I have a very small plant, but can you identify it?

Here are the pictures:

http://www.bananas.org/gallery/uploads/5325/DSC_3514.JPG

http://www.bananas.org/gallery/uploads/5325/DSC_3520.JPG

http://www.bananas.org/gallery/uploads/5325/DSC_3519.JPG

Is it really a Colocasia gigantea or it could be a more

common

Colocasia esculenta? What are the scientific characteristic

of a Colocaosia gigantea? Can you help me please?

Best regards

Stefano

Comment (1)

  • exoticrainforest
    13 years ago

    I realize it is often frustrating to not be able to ID a plant but in this case your plant is still too juvenile to make out the detailed features that are used for that purpose. It looks very much like a variety of forms of Colocasia esculenta but there are over 100 known forms so to offer an opinion would be little more than a guess.

    I am posting the scientific description of the species so you can file it and as the plant matures begin to check the features against the plant.

    The chances are high you will have to wait for the plant to grow fairly large to be certain. You may want to invest in a descent botanical dictionary to be able to understand some of the terms used in botanist Pete Boyce description.

    Again, I am sorry not to be able to give you more assistance but attempting to ID most juvenile plants often results in a bad ID.

    Steve

    Colocasia gigantea (Blume) J. D. Hooker, Fl. Brit. India 6:

    ´óðÃó da ye yu

    Herbs, large to gigantic, evergreen, with massive, stout
    epigeal stem. Leaves very large; petiole pale green, strikingly pruinose, to 2.5 m, proximal half sheathing; leaf blade white pruinose abaxially, especially when immature, green or pale green adaxially, ovate-cordate, 25¨C250 ¡à 17¨C150 cm, membranous,base cordate, peltate, margin undulate, apex shortly acuminate. Inflorescences 5¨C13 arising from leaf axil (actually terminal on shoot and displaced by new shoot); peduncle pruinose, cylindric, 30¨C80 ¡à 1¨C2 cm, each with a membranous cataphyllnearly equaling length of peduncle. Spathe 12¨C24 cm; tube green, ellipsoid, 3¨C6 ¡à 1.5¨C2 cm; limb erect, white, oblongboat-
    shaped, distinctly constricted, 8¨C19 ¡à 2¨C3 cm. Spadix 9¨C
    20 cm; female zone white or cream-colored, conic; sterile zone 3¨C4.5 cm, slender; male zone 5¨C14 cm; appendix very short, 1¨C5 mm, apex acute. Berry oblong, ca. 5 mm. Seeds many, fusiform, with many distinct longitudinal striations. Fl. Apr¨CJun, fr. Sep. 2n = 28.

    Valley forests, limestone-associated, usually on moist but welldrained sites, also cultivated; 100¨C700 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Jiangxi, Yunnan; cultivated in Anhui, Guizhou, Hunan, Sichuan, and Zhejiang [Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia (Peninsular), Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam; widely cultivated in SE Asia].

    The link below may help.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Colocoasia esculenta

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