herbaceous plant of the family Araceae. Probably native to southeastern Asia, whence it has spread to the Pacific islands, it has become a staple crop cultivated for its large, starchy, spherical underground tubers, which are consumed as cooked vegetables, made into puddings and breads, and also made into the Polynesian poi, a thin, pasty, highly digestible mass of fermented taro starch. The large leaves of the taro are commonly stewed.

Taro is cultivated in rich, well-drained soil. The tubers are harvested seven months after planting. Taro leaves and tubers are poisonous if eaten raw; the acrid calcium oxalate they contain must first be destroyed by heating.