Colocasia esculenta (Linn. ) Schott, Taro (native to Southeast Asia). Araceae Plant a perennial herb, up to 30-150 cm tall. Root contractile adventitious root grown downwards. Stems (underground) brown-skinned and white fleshed cylindrical corm, up to 10-30 cm long and 10-15 cm in diameter. Leaf Scar composed outwardly of concentric rings around the corm. Vascular Bundle Scar pattern is scattered. Buds axillary buds oriented vertically in dumb-bell shape on top of corm.
Leaves composed of 2-3 large perennial simple leaves with up to 30-90 cm in length and 20-60 cm in width, attached decurrently in an upright whorled position. Petiole cylindrical, green, long and erect, 0. 2-1 m long. Leaf Blade green and auriculate laminae, up to 25-85 cm long and 20-60 cm wide, with rounded basal lobes, an entire margin, and broadly acuminate apex, simple blade division with a reticulate (net-veined) venation, a waxy glaucous and water-shedding surface adaxial, a light-green venation surface abaxial, and a glabrous blade texture.
Inflorescence indeterminate, oriented vertically, monoecious, terminal, thickened, fleshy axis surface, composed of a falcate bract spathe 20 to 40 cm in length surrounding the spadix, bearing clusters of sessile, apetalous, unisexual flowers. Flowers unisexual, 6-14 cm in length, packed together, antrorse, upright, radial, sessile. Pedicel 15-30 cm in length, stout, shorter than petiole.
Bract single (1), distal, 20-40 cm in length, cream-colored to golden yellow, sheath attachment, linear-lanceolate, wraps around spadix in lower tubular portion, with an entire margin, acuminate apex, divided into lower and upper part, with smooth texture. Stamens 1-6(-12), weakly clavate. Filaments distinct to connate. Anthers sessile, obconical synandrium, sometimes opening by pores, distinct to connate, fused. Pollen grains various. Gynoecium syncarpous. Ovary superior, 0. 5-1. 5 mm in diameter, obovoid.
Styles narrowed, short. Stigmas subsessile, disciform-capitate. Carpels 2-4, superior. Locules single (1). Placentation parietal. Placenta in ovary wall within a nonsectioned ovary. Ovules 36-37 per carpel, hemiorthotropus. Fruit a greenish-whitish or dull orange, obconic, small berry, up to 3-5 mm diameter. Seeds pale-yellow, ovate, longitudinally ridged, 1. 0-1. 5 mm long, 0. 7-1 mm wide, with a hard surface. Funiculus relatively long. Embryo axile, cylindrical. FLORAL FORMULA: T-4-6- or -0-, A1-6, G1-3; berry
