Hilo beauty? Think not

I would really appreciate it if someone could help me ID. This was given to me as a VERY tiny baby by a friend. She said she bought the mother plant from ebay labeled as 'Hilo beauty'. Although it has grown very well for me and I think it's pretty I don't believe this to be 'Hilo beauty'. I am also curious about the fact that only a few of the leaves have the mottled coloring, the others are solid green.Is this normal for the variegated forms? I have had this for about three months now and it exploded from a 1" baby to now about 2 1/2 ft tall.

That is definitely not a 'Hilo Beauty', although it is a beauty! It is definitely Colocasia probably elepaio. Here's a link:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/66916/

LariAnn

Is it albo or aureo splotched? (White or yellow?) It looks yellow to me, and the fact that the other leaves have absolutely NO splotches but are all green make me say Colocasia "Yellow Splash". Yellow Splash frequently has a mix of variegated and non-variegated leaves; Elepaio usually has some splashes of color on every leaf

To me it looks white! But whether white or yellow, chimeric variegants are funny that way, especially if grown from pups. A pup can come out all white, variegated, half variegated, all green, and almost everything in between, depending upon what the mix of cells was when the pup was initiated. TC'd young plants are more uniform because the aberrant ones are culled out before the others are sent to the nursery to be grown out.

True. My Yellow Splash has a huge degree of variation. I have even had some striking all yellow leaves. This was an interesting leaf I had on a yellow splash, LOL

Yours is definitely yellow, and that is a very interesting leaf. The surprises are one of the attractions of the chimeric variegant, IMHO.

It's white. Thanks for answering all my questions on the variegations. I wasn't certain why some of them were all green, now I know it's normal. Since it's white are you pretty sure it would be elepaio?

I still say, I think that's weird for Elepaio. I have never ever had any all green leaves on Elepaio. Sometimes it has half and half leaves, sometimes leaves that look like the Yellow Splash leaf above but in white, and sometimes just a scattering of small white spots, but not ever all green. But Yellow Splash gets all green leaves a lot. Like these

Contrast with Elepaio

That's just about how mine looks now. Is it possible for 'yellow splash' to look more white if given a lot of shade?


Perhaps the both of you could help me out with a couple of other IDs. I was at a small local nursery today and she was cleaning out her stock of EE's. Some are colocasia and some alocasia. Only one was labeled and it was 'california'. (this one)

No label #1 This one has upright leaves but they are thicker than the last pic.

No label #2 This one has black stems and leaf hangs downward somewhat purply-green color.

No label #3 This one has large green leaves that hang downward.

Thanks in advance for all the IDs

The last two are Colocasias; the last one is probably Colocasia esculenta. The first one is Alocasia gageana. The second one could be Alocasia macrorrhizos or one of its forms. The third one is one of the "black" Colocasias; there are several and from just a leaf, almost impossible to pin down which one. Colocasia 'Black Magic', Colocasia 'Black Runner' are two of the possibilities.

The mystery Taro does not look like Elepaio or any other Hawaiian Taro.

Elepaio does look typically like Gothqueen's plant.

Hawaiian Taro, Colocasia esculenta var. esculenta will form a clump.

Asian Taro, Colocasia esculenta var. antiquorum will send out runners.

The color on Yellow Splash varies so much, and can look more cream-colored than yellow, esp. as the leaf ages, your plant looks like yellow splash. Would you say the color is white or cream? Elepaio is not a really vigorous grower for me but yellow splash is, so that and the revert back to green seem to indicate the plant is yellow splash. If you see runners, then you'll know it's yellow splash, my elepaios have never put out runners for me..lol...I wish.

I know little about alocasias, but I agree with Lari Ann that the third picture is probably Black Magic and the fourth looks like a typical c. esculenta.

Thank you to all of you.