C.e. aquatilis (?) are
pretty 'loose', and are considered to be just VARIETIES or cultivars of one
species,
much like the 'new' one that was discussed in Aroideana Vol. 11, No. 1 of
March 1988, it was from Nigeria, Africa, and as this article points out
(correctly I believe!) the names C. esculenta var. antiquorum, the 'eddoe'
type, and C.e. var. esculenta, the 'dasheen'- type of corm, are in the
literature as VARIETIES based on the form of the tubers of the SAME species,
they are NOT sub-species. Varieties (written as "var." in the article) are
just another word for cultivar, so we must conclude from this and other
literature that we are dealing with only ONE species, Colocasia esculenta,
and we know that in this species there are hundreds of 'vars', cultivars, or
whatever else we choose to call them. There are MANY (hundreds!)
cultivars of the 'dasheen'-type variety, three (that I know of) of the
'eddoes' type, and many of the non-tuber forming type, which is used for its
young leaves.
Sincerely,
Julius Boos
(who LOVES to eat ALL of the sub-species/cultivars/varieties of this
WONDERFUL plant!!!)
W.P.B., Florida.
Well, I can say this. Eduardo's original question was about subspecies
(esculenta/antiquorum/aquatilis), and their classification based on tuber
form. Now we have gotten into cultivars, a completely different issue from
subspecies. No doubt, each subspecies has a number of cultivars; it would
be
interesting to see if any one subspecies has significantly more cultivars
than the others.
Jason Hernandez
Naturalist-at-Large
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