COLOCASIA 



ANTIQUORUM 

 Kachu 



THE TARO OR KACHU 



greatly increased demand. The smaller and more gracefully formed examples 

 of montiife.r and of stetiocnrjta, it would seem, stand a fair chance of coming 

 European Uses, into use in Europe as beads, especially in the construction of bugle -trimmings 

 and as buds and other special portions of artificial flowers. They would be 

 cheaper, more durable, than the glass at present used, and since they may be 

 dyed any desired shade of colour, they might be extensively employed in dress- 

 trimmings. And doubtless the difficulty of producing and maintaining certain 

 sizes and shapes of grain would soon be overcome were a profitable demand to 

 arise for a larger production than at present exists. 



D.B.P., 

 ii., 501-2. 

 Colchicum. 



Two Forms. 



Baker; Fl. Br. Ind., vi., 356; 

 the grassy slopes of the Western 



COLCHICUM LUTEUM, 



A small plant found on 

 Temperate Himalaya. 



The corms (or bulbous roots) constitute the bitter hermodactyl of the later 

 Greeks, and are the surinjan of the Indian bazars. The true COLCHICUM (r. 

 <iiitnniii,ii< ) does not occur in India, but in the bazars there are two forms sold, 

 the bitter and the sweet. The latter is imported from Persia. European phy- 

 sicians in India consider the sweet root as inert, but they would seem to hold that 

 the bitter one possesses similar properties to the true colchicum and may be 

 Poisonous Seeds, substituted for it. Recently a few children were reported to have been poisoned 

 at Kuldana in Rawalpindi through eating the seeds of this Indian colchicum. 

 The seeds were accordingly chemically analysed at Calcutta (as also the roots), 

 and tested physiologically. It was found that both possessed colchicine, of which 

 the hundredth part of a grain proved fatal to cats. [Cf. Hooper, Rept. Labor. 

 Ind. Mus. (Induet, Sec.), 1902-3, 28.] 



D.E.P., 

 ii., 509-11. 

 Kachu. 



Description. 



Pot-herb. 



Wild Forma. 



Cultivated 

 Forms. 



COLOCASIA ANTIQUORUM, Schott. ; Fl Br. Ind., vi., 523 ; 

 Jacobus Bontius, Hist. Nat. et Med. Ind. Or., 1629, in Piso, Ind. Utri. re 

 Nat. et Med., 1658, 144 ; Rumphius, Herb. Amb., 1750, v., 313, t. 109 ; 

 Forster, PI. Esc., 1786, 57 ; Arum Colocasia, Roxb., Fl. Ind., iii., 494-5 ; 

 Taleef Shereef (Playfair, transl.), 1833, 12-3 ; Nicholls, Textbook Trop. 

 Agri., 290-3 ; Duthie and Fuller, Field and Garden Crops, iii., 8, t. Ixxv. ; 

 Mollison, Textbook Ind. Agri., iii., 191-3 ; Rec. Bot. Surv. Ind., L, 86, 277 ; 

 ii., 25, 147; 1905, iii., 296; Pram, Beng. Plants, ii., 1112; Wiesner, Die 

 Rohst. des Pflanzenr., i., 566 ; AROIDEJE. The Taro, Eddoes, Scratch-coco, 

 Tania, Egyptian Arum ; in the vernaculars kachu or katchu, kachchi, arvi, 

 avois ; dzu (cultivated) and kirth (wild) Naga hills; rob (Pb.) ; dlu, terem 

 (Bombay); shdmd-thumpa (Tel.); Tahitian tallo ortarro, Malayan tallas, etc. 



Habitat. A tall, coarse, tuberous herb, wild and cultivated both in moist and 

 drys ituations over the greater part of tropical India and Ceylon up to 8,000 feet 

 (in the Himalaya) ; cultivated, in fact, hi all tropical countries. 



The plant has large heart-shaped leaves, borne on long footstalks which rise 

 from a short farinaceous underground stem or corm. The corm constitutes an 

 important article of food with the Natives of India, and the young leaves are often 

 eaten in the form of spinach. The plant is in consequence fairly extensively 

 cultivated, and special races have been evolved to suit every condition of soil and 

 climate, from the swamps of Lower Bengal to the moist hills of Assam and Madras, 

 to the dry uplands and lower hills of the Deccan and Rajputana and even to the 

 temperate tracts of the Himalaya. 



Wild and Cultivated Forms. The wild plant, which is extremely plentiful 

 in the moist tropical regions, produces but rarely an edible tuber though its leaves 

 are often eaten. Roxburgh describes three special wild forms : kalla kachu, a 

 plant with purple leaves found on the edge of ditches the leaves and leaf-stalks 

 are eaten ; the char-kachu, which has the leaves clouded with bluish-black ; and 

 the ban-kachu with green leaves. These are found on roadsides and homestead 

 lands, but above inundation level. 



Roxburgh also mentions two cultivated forms, the guri-kachu and the aau- 

 kachu (or early kachu). Small corms of these are planted in May or June, the asu 

 being reaped towards the end of the year and the guri not until February or 

 March. Lastly Roxburgh mentions, as a distinct species, a special form of 



398 



