Request for taro (Colocasia esculenta) leaf samples
Pieces of taro leaf are easily dried and preserved with photographer silica gel in a small plastic ziplock bag.
An Italian PhD student in the UK (who I am advising) has asked for some more leaf samples from Asia to compare with samples already collected from Africa. She does not have time to process a large number, but if anyone here can help with a few samples (wild or cultivated) from their own area, it will be interesting to see if they look like any of the African taros.
See Ilaria Grimaldi's request here.
Thanks, Peter
Hi Peter,
Just as a follow-up, I've searched a bit for Mediterranean and other non-Hawaiian taro varieties in Honolulu, but have had no luck so far (no luck via staff or owners of the Greek restaurant either, FYI). There are a few other possible sources to check, so this isn't definitive, but at this point it appears unlikely that any of the Mediterranean varieties have been introduced here. I hold out more hope for varieties from Asia, but we'll see.
One interesting complicating factor is the political debacle regarding genetic modification of Hawaiian taro. You probably know more of the details about it than I do. But Native Hawaiian opposition to modification of taro seems to have had a chilling effect on anyone working on anything but Hawaiian taro here. It's still a politically sensitive issue years after the main debate.
Anyway, I'll let you know if anything interesting turns up.
Aloha,
JD
Dear Azam,
Thanks! For me, it would be of great interest to see any photos of taro in Bangladesh. Our museum has one student from your country who has been doing field work in NW Bangladesh (looking at local education in schools) and she has shown me photos of wild taro in that area. And a colleague here at the museum has shown me photos from the lowlands near Dhaka, where wild taro serves as a fodder for herds of semi-wild boar.
My own interest is in mapping the distribution and uses of wild taro populations across SE Asia... and of course it is always good to see how cultivated taros are kept. In some production systems, where plants are allowed to flower, it may be relatively easy for cultivated and wild taros to cross-breed.
My email address is researchcooperative (at) gmail (dot) com
Best regards, Peter
Dear peter,
This is difficult to send any dried plant sample without government permission from Bangladesh. I can send couple of images if it solves the requirement. I took them during my research in the field. Looking forward to hear from you.
have a nice day.
Azam
Good idea!
I'm going to poke around CTAHR at UH too, since researchers might have gathered collections rather widely when they were working on disease resistance. We'll see what might still be around.
Dear JD,
Close to the UofHatM campus there is a 'Greek' restaurant that used to be owned by an Egyptian, with Syrian floor staff. That might be a good starting place to discover if Mediterranean taro varieties have been introduced to Hawaii!
Cheers, P.
Presumably she doesn't need anything from the Pacific. But I'll ask around to see if anyone's cultivating any Asian varieties around Oahu.
Cheers,
JD