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Taro (Colocasia esculenta) in Europe: a journey through fields, botanical gardens, ditches and city markets

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Abstract

Taro (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott) is an aroid species originally domesticated in mainland Southeast Asia and currently widely cultivated as a vegetable and root crop in tropical and temperate regions of Asia, the Pacific, Africa and the Americas. Taro was attested for the first time in Europe in the fourth century BC, but despite this early introduction few research activities have dealt with this crop on the European continent. In this paper we provide a first comprehensive overview of taro in Europe. After examining the history of this crop in the Old Continent (from its earliest written mentions to its uses as an ornamental plant and the current import of new cultivars in city markets), we describe its cultivation and uses in Macaronesia and Cyprus, where this plant is still grown as a food crop. Moreover, we present an update on casual and naturalized uncultivated populations of taro as well as on ex situ conservation in Europe. Finally, we propose a series of research questions and conservation actions that should be addressed to enhance the long-term conservation and sustainable use of taro genetic resources in Europe.

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Acknowledgements

The first author is grateful to Joana Magos Brehm for the link with the Portuguese co-authors. The authors are grateful to Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) for providing the data on ex situ collections of taro conserved in botanic gardens in Europe. More in detail we are grateful to Patricia Malcolm and Charlotte Ely for their precious assistance in retrieving the data. P.J.M. thanks the Toshiba International Foundation (TIFO, 2019) for support provided to visit France as a member of the "Power of Invisibles" art and archaeology project, investigating human interactions with landscape and cultural heritage, the Mitsubishi Foundation (grant no. J24M000009, 2024) for supporting further study of taro culinary traditions, and Eric Schranz (Wageningen University and Research) for an opportunity to visit the Netherlands in 2024. We also thank the Centro de Agrodiversidad de La Palma for the information they provided, the farmers who gave us the location of the crop, and the Ñames Melos processing company for their contributions.

Funding

Author P.J.M. received support from the Mitsubishi Foundation (grant no. J24M000009, 2024). Authors M.A.A.P.C and C.S.S.G were funded by National Funds by FCT –Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, under the projects UID/04033 and LA/P/0126/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/LA/P/0126/2020)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. European Cooperative Programme for Plant Genetic Resources (ECPGR), c/o Alliance of Bioversity International, CIAT, Rome, Italy

    Filippo Guzzon

  2. Department of Environmental Biology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Duilio Iamonico

  3. ISOPlexis, Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Technology, University of Madeira, Campus da Penteada, 9200-105, Funchal, Portugal

    Miguel A. A. Pinheiro de Carvalho, Carla S. S. Gouveia & Humberto Nóbrega

  4. CITAB, Center for the Research and Technology of Agro Environmental and Biological Sciences, University of Trás-Os-Montes eAlto Douro, 5000-801, Vila Real, Portugal

    Miguel A. A. Pinheiro de Carvalho & Carla S. S. Gouveia

  5. Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Madeira, Campus da Penteada, 9020-105, Funchal, Portugal

    Miguel A. A. Pinheiro de Carvalho & Carla S. S. Gouveia

  6. Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e L’analisi dell’Economia Agraria, Difesa e Certificazione (CREA-DC), Rome, Italy

    Ilaria Maria Grimaldi

  7. Department of Cross-Field Research, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan

    Peter J. Matthews

  8. Agricultural Research Institute, P.O.Box 22016, 1516, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Angelos C. Kyratzis

  9. Centro de Conservación de La Biodiversidad Agrícola de Tenerife (CCBAT), Cabildo Insular de Tenerife, Puerto de La Cruz, Tenerife, Spain

    Desirée Afonso-Morales, María Encarnación Velázquez-Barrera & Domingo Ríos Mesa

  10. Jardín de Aclimatación de La Orotava (JAO), Instituto Canario de Investigaciones Agrarias (ICIA), C/Retama 2, 38400, Puerto de La Cruz, Tenerife, Spain

    Verónica Pérez

  11. Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Tenerife, Spain

    Domingo Ríos Mesa

  12. Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees (CePaCT), Land Resource Division (LRD), Pacific Community (SPC), Suva, Fiji

    Amit C. Sukal

  13. Botanical Garden of Padova, Via Orto Botanico, 15, 35123, Padua, Italy

    Marco Canella

  14. Science Collections Department, Millennium Seed Bank, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Wakehurst Place, Ardingly, RH17 6TN, UK

    Jonas V. Müller

Authors
  1. Filippo Guzzon
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  2. Duilio Iamonico
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  3. Miguel A. A. Pinheiro de Carvalho
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  4. Carla S. S. Gouveia
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  14. Marco Canella
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  15. Jonas V. Müller
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Contributions

F.G. designed the study and wrote the Introduction, conclusions and the section on ex situ conservation. P.J.M. and I.M.G wrote the section on history of taro in Europe. A.K. wrote the section on taro in Cyprus. D.I. wrote the section on naturalized populations. D.AM., V.P., M.E.V.B. and D.R.M wrote the section on taro in the Canary Islands. M.A.A.P.C., C.S.S.G., H.N. wrote the section on taro in the Azores and Madeira. M.C. curated the images and references. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript as well as read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Filippo Guzzon.

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Guzzon, F., Iamonico, D., Pinheiro de Carvalho, M.A.A. et al. Taro (Colocasia esculenta) in Europe: a journey through fields, botanical gardens, ditches and city markets. Genet Resour Crop Evol 72, 6253–6274 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10722-025-02354-7

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