| Colocasia gigantea | |
|---|---|
| |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Monocots |
| Order: | Alismatales |
| Family: | Araceae |
| Genus: | Colocasia |
| Species: | C. gigantea
|
| Binomial name | |
| Colocasia gigantea (Blume ex Hassk.) Hook.f.
| |
Colocasia gigantea, also called giant elephant ear or Indian taro, is a 1.5–3 m tall herb with a large, fibrous corm, producing at its apex a whorl of large leaves.[1] The leaf stalk is used as a vegetable in some areas in South East Asia and Japan.
Known as dọc mùng[2][3][4] in Vietnam (bạc hà in some provinces in southern Vietnam), it is often used in canh chua and bún.
In Japanese, it is called hasu-imo[5] (literally, "lotus yam") in general and ryukyu in Kōchi Prefecture as it is originated in Ryukyu Kingdom. It is sometimes used as an ingredient of miso soup, chanpurū and sushi. A Japanese term zuiki means the leaf stalk of both C. gigantea and C. esculenta. Higo-zuiki, made of a dried stalk and produced solely in Kumamoto Prefecture (or Higo Province), is a sex toy with a history of several hundred years, containing saponin which is considered to affect sexual pleasure.[citation needed]
Colocasia gigantea is close to Alocasia macrorrhizos and is thought to be produced from natural crossing between A. macrorrhizos and C. esculenta.[6]
