122 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



to California and now that my private herbarium is merged 

 with the general one of Brown University, these, with their 

 accompanying notes, form a pleasant record of those halcyon 

 da vs. 



THE HAWAIIAN TARO 



By Vaughan MacCaughey. 



HPHF most important and distinctive crop-plant of the native 

 -*- Hawai'ians is the taro or kalo. This valuable aroid 

 {Colocasia antiquorum var. esculenta) occurs in many parts 

 of the South Pacific, and in tropical Asia, and was brought 

 to Hawai'i by the early Polynesian migrants from the south. 

 Thev were skillful and industrious farmers, and developed 

 their primitive agriculture to a high state of efficiency. 



The taro plant resembles in appearance the large caladiums 

 or "elephant's ears" common in Eastern lawns and gardens. 

 From the large, starchy, subterranean corm ( which is the part 

 of economic value), springs a cluster of large, sagittate leaves. 

 The corm is usually from six to twelve inches long and four 

 or five inches in diameter, like a large sweet potato. The 

 petioles rise to a height of from two to four feet and the 

 blades are from ten to sixteen inches long and eight to twelve 

 inches broad. They are bright yellow-green and so smooth 

 that water runs off them like quicksilver. The flowers are of 

 the typical aroid pattern, with spadix and creamy-yellow 

 spathe, from three to five inches high. Flowers are rare and 

 seed production is practically unknown. Taro has been 

 propagated for untold centuries by purely vegetative methods 

 and like many other tropical plants ( sugar cane, sweet potatoes, 

 pineapples, bananas, etc.), has lost the seed habit. 



A widely-circulated misstatement concerning Hawai'ian 

 taro is to the effect that "there are about forty varieties." In 



