This stout, clumping herb of tropical South America is known by many as 'elephant's ear.' It is distinguished in part by its usually large leaves, with fleshy petioles to 6 feet long and broad arrowhead-shaped blades to 3 feet long (and nearly as wide at the blade base). These leaves arise from a broad corm; offshoots appear on short rhizomes extending from the corm. The species is most often confused with the taro plant, Colocasia esculenta, but taro leaves are peltate & the petioles attach to the blades at a point interior to the blade margin, not at the edge of the blade as in elephant's ear and other members of the arum family. |
