Flowers, Plants & Gardening

Wong's Products has been cultivating Chinese Taro for generations. Eddie Apolo, Farm Manager, tells us the difference between Hawaiian Taro and Chinese Taro. Taro (Pronounced Tah-roe)(from Tahitian or other Polynesian languages), more rarely kalo (from Hawaiian) and gabi in The Philippines, is a tropical plant grown primarily as a vegetable food for its edible corm, and secondarily as a leaf vegetable. It is considered a staple in oceanic cultures. It is believed to be one of the earliest cultivated plants.[1] Taro is closely related to Xanthosoma and Caladium, plants commonly grown as ornamentals, and like them it is sometimes loosely called elephant ear. In its raw form the plant is toxic due to the presence of calcium oxalate,[2][3] although the toxin is destroyed by cooking[4] or can be removed by steeping taro roots in cold water overnight. Taro was probably first native to the lowland wetlands of Malaysia (taloes). Estimates are that taro was in cultivation in wet tropical India before 5000 BC, presumably coming from Malaysia, and from India further transported westward to ancient Egypt, where it was described by Greek and Roman historians as an important crop. Taro's scientific name is Colocasia esculenta (synonym C. antiquorum); esculent is an English word taken directly from Latin and means edible. The Xanthosoma genus is closely related, and several common names including callaloo and coco or cocoyam are used to refer to either Taro or domesticated Xanthosoma ...

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