Taro (Colocasia esculenta)

Talas or taro (Colocasia esculenta) is a plant species in Araceae, 0.4 to 1.5 m high, has no stem and is not woody, waxy leaves, important tuber producers where corm that grows underground is a source of carbohydrates and cultivated since ancient times.

C. esculenta has 2-5 leaves with green stems, dark green or purplish stripes, 23-150 cm long and the base is a midrib. Leaves have a size of 6.60x7.53 cm, round eggs, oval with tapered ends, sometimes purplish in color around the stalks, waxy and rounded base.

The flower comes in the cob on the armpit of the leaf and has a stem for a length of 15-60 cm. The sheath has a length of 10-30 cm consisting of two parts where the top is longer, yellow orange and fall out. Male cob is yellow, fruit is green and 0.5 cm in diameter. Bobbin-shaped seeds and grooved longitudinally.

Taro is grown for tubers as an important source of carbohydrates. However, these tubers contain itchy sap, so they must be cooked before consuming them. Tubers can be processed by steaming, boiling, baking, frying, or processed into flour, porridge, cakes, pasta and fermented to produce pudding.

Young leaves and stems are processed as vegetables in coconut milk. Leaves, stems and tubers are also used as animal feed and carp. The surface of the leaves is covered with fine hairs which make it waterproof, shield-shaped and wide often used as a head protector when it rains, food wrappers and live fish containers.

Taro has a sweet, spicy and neutral taste. Bulbs, leaves and petioles contain flour, villose, polyphenols and saponins. Tubers are used for anti-inflammation and reduce swelling. The leaves and stems are astringent.

Talas has at least four varieties. Pandanus taro has a purplish color, a reddish stem base and has a fragrance after boiling. Glutinous taro has a light green color, has a lot of shoots and is somewhat sticky after boiling. Bull taro has purple stems, large bulbs, but has a bitter taste. Lahun taro has a small size and has many shoots.

Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Subphylum: Angiospermae
Class: Liliopsida
Order: Alismatales
Family: Araceae
Subfamily: Aroideae
Tribe: Colocasieae
Genus: Colocasia
Species: Colocasia esculenta
Subspecies: Colocasia esculenta ssp. antiquorum, Colocasia esculenta ssp. esculenta

Tiang fern (Cyathea contaminans)

Paku tiang or pole fern or tiang fern ( Cyathea contaminans ) is a plant species in Cyatheaceae, has a height of up to 12 m, a single stem and the old part shows traces of leaves, the basal part is thickened by adventitious roots and grows mixed with other species. C. contaminans has stipe for 100 cm long, gloucous, purplish to the base, very thorny, when young has scales on all parts, up to 45x3 mm in size, pale brown, very thin and setiferous. The main rachis is pale, prickly, scaly as a stipe but then glabrescent. Pinnae has the largest size of 60 cm and the lowest decreases with stems up to 10 cm. Pinnules have a size of 150x30 mm or smaller with 1-2 pairs of basal segments more or not at all, the rest of the pine curved almost to the rib. Costules have a size of 4-5 mm. Common veins are 12 pairs. The lamina segment is hard, rough on the bottom and fibrous edges. Sori is exindusiate, near costule and pale paraphrase is no more than sporangia. The scales and hair on the pi...

Wild durian (Cullenia exarillata)

Wild durian ( Cullenia exarillata ) is a species of plant in the Malvaceae, a tall tree with smooth, greyish-white bark, peeling on older trees, a straight trunk, horizontal branches and often with a series of knob-like tubercles for flower and fruit attachment. C. exarillata has young branches and the underside of the leaves is covered with golden brown peltate or shield-like scales. The leaves are single, alternate, glabrous, glossy green on the upper side and covered with silvery or orange peltate scales on the underside. Hermaphroditic flowers are tubular and also covered with golden brown scales, 4-5 cm long and cream or reddish brown in color. Flowers have no petals, formed of tubular bracteoles and tubular calyxes, 5-lobed. Fruit is round, 10-13 cm in diameter, covered with thorns and clustered along the branches. Many seeds, reddish brown, 4-5 cm long and 2-3 cm wide. The seeds are enclosed by a fleshy, whitish aril. The fruit splits open when ripe and dries to release the s...

Thomas Sutikna lives with Homo floresiensis

BLOG - On October 28, 2004, a paper was published in Nature describing the dwarf hominin we know today as Homo floresiensis that has shocked the world. The report changed the geographical landscape of early humans that previously stated that the Pleistocene Asia was only represented by two species, Homo erectus and Homo sapiens . The report titled "A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia" written by Peter Brown and Mike J. Morwood from the University of New England with Thomas Sutikna, Raden Pandji Soejono, Jatmiko, E. Wahyu Saptomo and Rokus Awe Due from the National Archaeology Research Institute (ARKENAS), Indonesia, presents more diversity in the genus Homo. “Immediately, my fever vanished. I couldn’t sleep well that night. I couldn’t wait for sunrise. In the early morning we went to the site, and when we arrived in the cave, I didn’t say a thing because both my mind and heart couldn’t handle this incredible moment. I just went down...

Dlium