milantropicallover

hello!
i found some asian and peruvian markets that sell different tuber, could someone tell me wich one is either an ornamental plant?

eddos ( it shoul be a kind of elephant ears?)
taro ( ee)
camote
yuca
olluco

All of them seem to be some kind of sweet patatos!
thanks

sunfish

Ulluco - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Floridata: Colocasia esculenta
Taro - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cassava - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sweet potato - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

mbfirey

Anything you find called "ñame" is probably also potato-like- Camote is basically a sweet potato.
As far as grocery store things go, Yautia is one of the ones I find most often.
You can also grow "tumeric" which as a decorative plant is called "hidden ginger"

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milantropicallover

thanks! but i was trying to understand if taro is always colocasia esculenta or under that name there are different kind of EE?

varig8

All of these plants common or indigenous names can be found on google. Taro is a common name usually reserved only for colocasia esculenta as it is edible, but when it comes to common names, local indigenous people often refer to most any elephant ear type as a Taro. Yuca is the only one besides the eddo and taro that is grown also as a decorative plant. There is a very beautiful variety of variegated Yuca, but I doubt you would ever find this in a grocery store. The other 2 yams or pototo types are just vines and not very interesting as ornamentals.

Bob

The Asian markets here can be a gold mine for unusual tubers / corms etc and are often much cheaper than buying the same things in a garden center.

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milantropicallover

Here in italy asian and other etnic mkt are the only way to get alocasia 'cause here are not so considered as ornamental plants.

I watched this video about an hawayan gardener talking about 84 different species of taro ( a lot of them edible) , so when we go to an asian market for a taro it's possible to find every time a different plants or is hightly unlikly? here the interesting taro coltivation link: How to grow Taro with Jerry Konanui on Vimeo

1aday

eddos ( it shoul be a kind of elephant ears?)
taro ( ee)
camote
yuca
olluco

Eddoes is Colocasia antiquorum
Taro is Colocasia esculenta (green EE)
Camote is Mexican sweet potato
Yuca is Cassava
Olluco is from Peru and similar to potato (but different)

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raygrogan

The smallish taro / eddo / dasheen / satoimo / araimo are a fun taro to grow. The leaves do look good, and are very edible if cooked with salt water. In the right conditions they can grow into a full sized taro the size of elephant ears, or can survive just fine in a small shady area.

Planter56

If you find a tuber called coco-yam that would be Xanthsoma a very very large cousin of the Colocasia esculenta. I had someone send me what they thought was Xanthsoma, but it was actually an Colocasia. The leaf structure is different as the two back sections in Xanthosma are not connected (saggitate) where as the Colocasia's aren't. Was sad that it wasn't a Xanthsoma

1aday

Here's a list of edible Aroids sorted by common name.

Edible Aroids

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RobG7aChattTN

It was already stated above, but the yuca root you see in grocery stores is not the yucca most people think of but the root of the cassava plant.

milantropicallover

Thanks to all!

The edible taro list is really interesting!
So today with my list i went to unother etnic market just to find out that they sell " gabi" that obviuosly wasn't in the long list above, ahahh, really frustating!! there's no way people stop to give thousands name at the same thing!! anyway it was colocasia esculenta too!
My question is, colocasia esculenta has really a lot of different varietes , really different one from unother, there is a particolar variety that is usually sold as edible taro or u can't find a lot of different colocasia esculenta varietes? ( black magi, hawayan, mojito, mammuth, etc)
If it is so,it's possible From the shape of the tuber understand wich kind of colocasia esculenta is it?

re-re-thanks!
Filippo

varig8

Doubt if you would find any of the ornamental varieties you've listed above at a grocer's market. Those types really arent grown for food staples. Most of them have only very small tubers and do'nt get as large as the Xanthosoma Saggitifolia or Colocasia Esculenta.

raygrogan

The shape of the tuber is rarely used ... and so not much help if you are just looking at it in a market and trying to figure out who's who. (some other tuber things are used, like skin color, inside color, etc.) The best taro key I have seen is from Bishop Museum in Honolulu. It is mostly about the Hawaiian taro varieties. The link is below. Once you get there, click "start" in the bottom right. THen take a break - it takes a few minutes to load up, there is a lot of info, pix, etc.

Hawaiian kalo