One of the most astounding facts that I’ve ever learned is that taro is not just a crop of the Asia-Pacific region, but has about two thousand years of history as a food crop in the Mediterranean.
It seems almost anachronistic to me, as if someone had told me the Ancient Egyptians liked to go surfing. In one sense, we could even say that taro is more traditionally Italian than tomatoes!
Today I happened to be driving in Westport, and I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a taro plant growing on the edges of some native bush. I stopped the car, and had a closer look. Sure enough, this is definitely edible taro (Colocasia esculenta).
Wild taro in Westport
This is the first time I’ve ever seen a wild taro plant on the West Coast, excluding the many black taro (Colocasia fontanesii) and the many many Alocasia brisbanensis. It’s clear from the size and condition of the corms, as well as the companion weeds nearby, that this taro patch was just ‘garden waste’ illegally dumped into the bushes.
Taro is not very common even in garden plantings on the West Coast (unlike Auckland for example). Perhaps I’ve only seen a few taro patches in all of Westport (again excluding black taro), and one patch near Fox River. I will check on the one patch I can remember in Westport to see if it’s empty, as that would likely solve the mystery of where these plants came from.
I uprooted some plants, as they looked potentially different from the taro varieties I am currently growing (although the differences in appearance may be explainable by just growing conditions). Westport does have a deep sea port as well, so there is a tiny chance for novel plants to have entered the town from far away places via sea as well.
Closeups of the wild taro found in Westport
I have become more risk averse to just introducing taro plants into my taro collection, as I suspect I brought back a minor pest from some wild Maori GP taro I collected when I visited Northland. So I decided to try a technique I learned online from Hawaiian kalo growers, which was that they wash the huli (stem cuttings with piece of corm, used for vegetatively propagating after harvest) in the sea. It may help, it may not. At least it was an excuse to head to the beach.
Washing taro in the waves
And lastly, I found yet another wild black taro patch in a swampy piece of paddock while exploring later in the day. It looks quite beautiful with the Canna lillies in the centre.
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