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Indian taro

David J. Stang / Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 4.0

Indian taro

Alocasia indica

A large aroid of India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Vietnam and Java whose standing as a species is disputed. Kew's World Checklist and GBIF accept Alocasia indica, but the Flora of China, PROSEA and Plants For A Future treat it as a synonym of giant taro (Alocasia macrorrhizos), and the RHS lists the name as misapplied to giant taro; Aroidpedia reports that the 2019 Fascicles of Flora of India keep it as a separate species. Flowers of India, which calls it Indian taro, tells it from giant taro by its light green, slightly heart-shaped leaves with rounded basal lobes, against giant taro's arrow-shaped ones, and says it is widely grown in Manipur as a vegetable. No source rates its hardiness as a species, so this record keeps it indoors except in USDA zones 10 and warmer, the range NC State Extension gives the genus. It is toxic raw: the ASPCA lists alocasias as toxic to dogs, cats and horses, and NC State and UF/IFAS describe calcium oxalate crystals that irritate the mouth, skin and eyes.

Climate fit: narrow (21/100)

Focal point

Container

Light

Part shade

Water

Consistent moisture

Mature size

2-10 ft tall · 3 ft apart

Hardy in zones

10a-12b

mild to frost-free winters

Native in Illinois

No

Toxic raw.

°C

°F

Cold hardiness

These values are location-based: this location's current hardiness is the baseline, and the 2050 value is a projected future climate for this same location.

Now

Zone 6b

Plotwright

USDA Zone 6b

-5°F to 0°F

Won't grow here

2050

2100

Zone 7a

Plotwright

0°F to 5°F

Won't grow here

In plain terms: This location has cold winters. Its winters are projected to keep warming through 2050.

✕

Out of range today and still out of range in 2050.

Heat tolerance

Heat tolerance values are location-based too: heat days today are observed at this site, and the 2050 value projects this same location under a future climate.

Loading AHS heat-zone data for this location...

What it needs

Conditions

Light

Part shade

Water

Consistent moisture

Spacing

3 ft

Habit

Large perennial herb with long, fleshy, overlapping leaf stalks and broad, heart-shaped leaves, grown in north-east India as a vegetable and elsewhere as an ornamental and a houseplant

Care tips

•

Give it bright, indirect light, warmth above 61°F while it grows and humidity from a tray of damp gravel, as the RHS advises for alocasias; strong sun scorches the leaves.

•

Keep it indoors through any frost: no source rates its hardiness as a species, so this record grows it outdoors only in USDA zones 10 and warmer, the range NC State gives the genus.

•

Let it rest in winter, cooler and drier but above 50°F, the RHS says, and cut watering to a minimum; overwatering rots the roots.

Lifecycle

Planting

Grow it indoors in a pot of peat-free compost with added grit, in bright, indirect light, as the RHS advises for alocasias; strong sun scorches the leaves, and UF/IFAS also asks for bright, indirect light indoors. NC State Extension says alocasias grow best where daytime temperatures run 68 to 77°F, in shade and slightly acidic, moist, well-drained, humus-rich soil. In USDA zones 10 and warmer it can go into the ground in partial shade, sheltered from the wind that NC State and UF/IFAS say damages the leaves; elsewhere NC State suggests starting the corms indoors and setting the pots outside after the last frost.

Transplanting

The RHS says alocasias can stay in their first pot for a year or so and should then be repotted every couple of years in spring, larger ones in a heavy terracotta pot for stability. A pot that spends summer outdoors comes back inside before the first autumn frost, NC State says, or the tubers can be lifted and stored somewhere cool and dry.

Early growth

Keep it above 61°F while it grows, water from April to October whenever the top 2 inches of compost is dry and raise the humidity with a tray of damp gravel, the RHS advises; in summer alocasias can put out a new leaf every week. In winter give it a cooler, drier rest, still above 50°F, when it may lose some leaves. Watch for spider mites, aphids and mealybugs, which NC State and UF/IFAS name, and for root rot and leaf spots from overwatering.

Maturity

No modern flora describes it as a species apart from giant taro. The nineteenth-century description that Aroidpedia quotes gives ovate-cordate leaves 2 to 3 feet long and a pale greenish-yellow spathe 6 to 8 inches long or more, and Dymock's Pharmacographia Indica of 1892, quoted there too, says the rootstock in Bengal often grows to an immense size. Flowers of India describes a pale yellow spadix shorter than its spathe and a fleshy berry that is round when ripe. NC State gives alocasias up to 10 feet in the tropics and much less as houseplants, and lists the 'Metallica' form at up to 8 feet.

Propagation

Separate and pot up the offsets that form around the base in spring, or divide the fleshy rhizome in late spring or early summer, as the RHS advises for alocasias; NC State recommends division of offsets. Wear gloves: the RHS says alocasia sap irritates the skin.

Native range

Climate notes

•

Indoors except in USDA zones 10 and warmer. No source rates the hardiness of Indian taro as a species: NC State Extension and Plants For A Future have no page for it, and the Missouri Botanical Garden could not be reached. This record uses NC State's range for the genus Alocasia, zones 10a to 12b, which is also the range Plants For A Future gives giant taro, the species that the Flora of China, PROSEA and Plants For A Future fold Alocasia indica into. UF/IFAS gives the whole genus zones 8a to 11 and says freezing kills the leaves but the plants regrow from the base in zone 8a and south; this record does not extend that genus-wide range to a species no source has rated.

•

The native range here is taken from Kew's World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), the dataset POWO publishes: India, including Assam and the Laccadive Islands, the eastern Himalaya, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Vietnam and Java. WCVP records no area where it has been introduced. Flowers of India gives its range as the Indian subcontinent to Indochina and says it is widely cultivated in Manipur, and Dymock's Pharmacographia Indica, quoted by Aroidpedia, recorded it as cultivated in Bengal and grown as an ornamental in western India.

•

Its standing as a species is disputed. WCVP and GBIF accept Alocasia indica (Lour.) Spach, published in 1846 and based on Loureiro's Arum indicum, and Wikipedia, following WCVP, lists Alocasia metallica and Alocasia indica var. metallica among its synonyms. The Flora of China lists Alocasia indica and its varieties, var. metallica among them, as synonyms of giant taro (Alocasia macrorrhizos), and PROSEA and Plants For A Future do the same; the RHS gives Alocasia indica as a name misapplied to giant taro, and NC State lists 'Metallica' as a giant taro cultivar. Aroidpedia reports that most botanists sink it into giant taro but that the 2019 Fascicles of Flora of India keep it distinct, and Flowers of India says the two have long been confused but that people in Manipur treat them as different plants. This record follows WCVP.

•

Size: no source gives the size of Indian taro as a species. This record uses NC State's range for the genus, 2 to 10 feet tall and wide, and the low end of UF/IFAS's spacing for the genus, 3 to 5 feet. NC State lists the 'Metallica' form at up to 8 feet tall, and the nineteenth-century description Aroidpedia quotes gives leaves 2 to 3 feet long.

Plant this, not that

Better fit for this place

For Chicago, IL, these are replacement suggestions: similar plants with a stronger hardiness fit now and/or in 2050.

Ligularia dentata

Leopard Plant

Ligularia dentata (leopard plant, summer ragwort) is a bold, moisture-loving herbaceous perennial native to China and Japan, grown for its enormous, glossy, heart-shaped toothed leaves and bright orange-yellow daisy flowers on dark red, near-leafless stalks in mid- to late summer. It makes an outstanding focal point beside water or in a shaded border, where its tropical-scale foliage dominates from spring through autumn. There are two honest catches: water - in full sun or any drying wind the giant leaves wilt dramatically by midday (they recover overnight, but the spectacle is ruined), so consistent moisture and afternoon shade are non-negotiable; and toxicity - like its Senecio relatives it contains hepatotoxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids and is not edible.

Perennial

Part sun / Part shade

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Hylotelephium 'Herbstfreude'

Autumn-joy stonecrop

A clump-forming herbaceous perennial grown for its showy late-season flower heads: masses of tiny star-like flowers borne in flattened cymes 3 to 6 inches across that emerge rosy pink, deepen to rose-red, and fade to coppery-rust as they die. Gray-green, fleshy, succulent-like leaves form upright clumps to about 24 inches. Easily grown in dry-to-medium, well-drained soil in full sun, it is drought tolerant and attracts butterflies, and its foliage and dead inflorescences persist into winter for added interest.

Perennial

Full sun / Part shade

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Lilium longiflorum

Easter lily

Easter lily reaches most people the way almost nothing else in this catalog does: as a forced gift plant in a foil-wrapped pot, in full white trumpet in March or April, months before its real season. Left to itself in a garden Lilium longiflorum flowers in July and August, and Missouri Botanical Garden files it under the plainer name trumpet lily. Everything about the pot version is engineered - bulbs lifted in autumn from a narrow strip of the California and Oregon coast, cooled, potted, held under a temperature schedule that lands the buds on a date that moves by up to five weeks a year, and kept short with growth retardants. That is why the plant you were given is 16 to 20 inches tall and the same plant in the ground is 2 to 3 feet. The single most important sentence in this record is not horticultural. This is the species behind the veterinary literature on feline lily poisoning: every part of it, including the pollen and the water in the vase, causes acute kidney injury in cats, less than one leaf can be enough, and untreated cases die in 36 to 72 hours. It is also the lily that enters houses in quantity, which is the whole problem. If there is a cat in the house, this plant does not come in the door. Beyond that, be clear about what it is not. It is not a hardy garden bulb in the way the regal lily in this wave is - Missouri Botanical Garden rates it zone 4 to 8, which is the most generous number in circulation for a subtropical island endemic, and much US extension guidance says 5 to 8. It is not a widespread wild species either: Kew's native range is the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, southern Japan and the Philippines, and nothing else. A globally traded flower with a natural range you could drive across in a day.

Perennial

Full sun / Part shade

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Similar plants

Browse lateral options with similar roles, light needs, size, or native-range overlap; these are not filtered for a better climate fit.

Alocasia odora

Asian taro

A massive evergreen aroid from southern and eastern Asia, native from India and the eastern Himalaya through Indochina to southern China, Taiwan and southern Japan, grown for its huge, glossy, upright, arrow-shaped leaves. UF/IFAS Extension gives it 4 to 8 feet tall and 4 to 6 feet wide in the garden, and the RHS says it can reach 4.9 feet as a houseplant. Its flowers are scented, most strongly at night, and Wikipedia gives night-scented lily as another of its names. Outside USDA zones 10 and warmer it lives indoors. Every part is poisonous: it is full of needle-like calcium oxalate crystals, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare records food poisoning when its stems were mistaken for taro, and the ASPCA lists Alocasia as toxic to dogs, cats and horses.

Alocasia macrorrhizos

Giant taro

A massive evergreen aroid grown for leaves that the RHS says reach 3.9 feet long, carried more or less upright on stalks up to 3.9 feet tall. Outside frost-free climates it is a big houseplant or conservatory plant, which the RHS sizes at 4.9 to 8.2 feet tall and wide; planted out in USDA zones 10 and warmer it grows much larger, and UF/IFAS gives it 12 to 15 feet. It has been grown as a starchy food crop across tropical Asia and the Pacific for so long that the Flora of China says it is not clear where, if anywhere, it still grows wild. Every part is toxic raw: the ASPCA lists alocasias as toxic to dogs, cats and horses, and the RHS warns that it is toxic if eaten and irritates skin and eyes, so where it is a food the corm and stem are eaten only after long cooking. It has naturalised along streams in Hawaii and rivers in Fiji and is cited as invasive on many Pacific islands; UF/IFAS does not consider it invasive in Florida and recommends it in place of invasive wild taro, but no elephant ear should be planted beside a natural waterway.

Ligularia dentata (leopard plant, summer ragwort) is a bold, moisture-loving herbaceous perennial native to China and Japan, grown for its enormous, glossy, heart-shaped toothed leaves and bright orange-yellow daisy flowers on dark red, near-leafless stalks in mid- to late summer. It makes an outstanding focal point beside water or in a shaded border, where its tropical-scale foliage dominates from spring through autumn. There are two honest catches: water - in full sun or any drying wind the giant leaves wilt dramatically by midday (they recover overnight, but the spectacle is ruined), so consistent moisture and afternoon shade are non-negotiable; and toxicity - like its Senecio relatives it contains hepatotoxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids and is not edible.

Perennial

Part sun / Part shade

Red ginger is a tall, upright, evergreen tropical perennial native to Maluku and the islands of Melanesia - New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu (the former New Hebrides) and New Caledonia - grown for its long-lasting, cone-like spikes of overlapping bright red to magenta bracts. The showy red parts are bracts (modified leaves), not petals; the true flowers are white and sit tucked between the bracts, easy to overlook against the color of the display. Clumps of leafy stems rise 3 to 10 feet from a spreading rhizome. It is frost-tender: grow it outdoors year-round only in USDA zones 10a-11b, and everywhere colder treat it as a container or indoor plant, brought under cover well before the first frost. It has also spread well beyond its native range: USDA PLANTS lists it as introduced in Hawaii and Puerto Rico, and Wikipedia records it growing across the Caribbean, in Suriname, and in Belize and Panama. It is not the culinary ginger of the spice rack - that is Zingiber officinale, a different genus - and it is grown as an ornamental and cut flower, not as food. Older references may list it under its original name, Guillainia purpurata.

Perennial

Part sun / Part shade

A bold tropical aroid from the rainforests of southern Mexico through Panama, grown almost everywhere outside the frost-free tropics as a foliage houseplant. It is a climbing epiphyte: it sends adventitious aerial roots to scramble up tree trunks, and its huge glossy heart-shaped leaves develop the deep cuts and oval holes (fenestrations) that give it both common names. Mature plants in the tropics flower with a creamy aroid spathe and produce a cone-like fruit that is edible only when fully ripe. Indoors it rarely flowers and is prized purely for its dramatic, architectural foliage.

Anigozanthos flavidus

Tall kangaroo paw

Tall kangaroo paw is an evergreen, clump-forming perennial from the southwest corner of Western Australia, grown for its upright fans of strap-like leaves and its tall, arching flower stalks topped with velvety, tubular yellow-green blooms - the unmistakable 'kangaroo paw' shape, sometimes shading to red, orange, or pink. Plants reach 3 to 6 feet tall and 2 to 4 feet wide and bloom from spring through fall in full sun to light shade. In its native range the flowers are pollinated by nectar-feeding birds, and the species has also naturalized outside that range in New South Wales. It is frost-tender and hardy as a garden perennial only in USDA zones 10a-11b. It hybridizes with other kangaroo paws and is used in breeding garden cultivars; this record covers the true species itself.

Perennial

Full sun / Part shade

Educator packet

Plant packet

Indian taro educator packet

A large aroid of India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Vietnam and Java whose standing as a species is disputed. Kew's World Checklist and GBIF accept Alocasia indica, but the Flora of China, PROSEA and Plants For A Future treat it as a synonym of giant taro (Alocasia macrorrhizos), and the RHS lists the name as misapplied to giant taro; Aroidpedia reports that the 2019 Fascicles of Flora of India keep it as a separate species. Flowers of India, which calls it Indian taro, tells it from giant taro by its light green, slightly heart-shaped leaves with rounded basal lobes, against giant taro's arrow-shaped ones, and says it is widely grown in Manipur as a vegetable. No source rates its hardiness as a species, so this record keeps it indoors except in USDA zones 10 and warmer, the range NC State Extension gives the genus. It is toxic raw: the ASPCA lists alocasias as toxic to dogs, cats and horses, and NC State and UF/IFAS describe calcium oxalate crystals that irritate the mouth, skin and eyes.

Scientific name

Alocasia indica

Plant type

perennial

Hardiness

10a-12b

Light

part-shade

Moisture

consistent

Spacing

3 ft