Colocasia esculenta – and varieties

I’ve written about Colocasias or Taro many times before on this blog. But I’ve had a bit of a Colocasia morning today.

The bog standard form of Colocasia esculenta has become too ‘at home’ in a couple of places in my garden. Despite the past 2 winters it comes back stronger each year and is gradually spreading by its runners. It particularly like to get up-close to my Ensetes (Bananas), I guess because these get well watered and fed. So, this morning I’ve been pulling out clumps of it from around the bananas (Ensetes). I don’t like doing this as it seems such a waste to trash such beautiful exotic plants. Oh well! The photo below shows some of the remaining ‘bog-standard’ Colocasia leaves after my clearing work. On the left is a Ricinus communis and on the right an Ensete ventricosum:

Colocasia esculenta:

The basic form of Colocasia esculenta is good but there are some different interesting species and varieties.

Below is a picture of the leaf of Colocasia fontanesii, it has almost black stems and large, dark green, shiny leaves. It spreads by runners but is not as hardy as the basic Colocasia:

Colocasia fontanesii:

Below is a picture of Colocasia ‘Burgundy Stem’. You may notice that I’ve taken the picture of just the leaf and not the stem! Oops! As the name suggests it has reddish stems and I find this variety has taller stems than others:

Colocasia ‘Burgundy Stem’:

A new (to me) variety of Colocasia I’m trying this year is ‘Chicago Harlequin’, I bought it from Amulree Exotics – they are an excellent online source for exotic and tropical plants. The leaves are supposed to be “blotched with 2-tone random green sections” but I’ve not noticed much blotching yet. I still have it in a pot but will have to make the decision to either plant it out or use a much, much bigger pot. It is going to be a monster! I’ve put one of my famous gardening shoes next to the pot in the photo to give an indication of size (so far).

Colocasia ‘Chicago Harlequin’:

This year, I also bought from Amulree Exotics – Colocasia ‘Black Beauty’ – it has very dark, almost black leaves with perhaps a hint of blue.  I think it looks a bit sickly and am not sure if it has too much or too little sunlight. I’ve grown a similar variety – Black Magic – before with similar disappointing result. Perhaps it will improve.

Colocasia ‘Black Beauty’: