It looks to me as C. 'Black Runner', but i am not sure. it grew from a small plant with 3 leaves into a 6 foot monster in 4 months - half a day of sun, noon to sundown. Leaves in full sun are purple, younger shaded leaves are green with purple veining. It's running above ground stolons.
and it has some kind of special veining too clearly visible on some leaves on the underside and when it is back-lit and especially on the old yellowing leaf.
here are the pics. i got the flower too!

It's a beauty sky. @Swayback?

It sure is a beauty! I know nothing about Colocasia but it does looks lot like Elephant Ear (Colocasia esculenta 'Black Runner')

Yep looks like my black runner aka black ruffles never know witch one to call it since they are both the same plant. I prefer black runner because it does run like crazy I'll try to get some pics up tomorrow. Nice growing Skylark.

If they are one and the same plant shouldn't they be combined in the database? We currently have two separate database:
Elephant Ear (Colocasia esculenta 'Black Runner')

Yea, looks like the one...
They're not listed as the same in the DB because they are not marketed as the same plant, I discussed this with Evan and he's right, if you buy it as black runner, then search the DB and it's not listed, then what do you do? Not everyone would think to search black ruffle, or even know that black ruffle is a cultivar.
I call mine black runner, it's a good description, but market them as black ruffle, it sounds better to the general public (generally ignorant), but jump at the opportunity to explain they are one in the same.
I've added notes to both plants in the DB to indicate they are the same!

Now... That special veining... Freaks me out!
To the trash can it would go if it were mine!

Oooh ... I love that special veining ... gives it character!

Sway, skylark noted it's an old yellowing leaf. Do you think it's virused?

I remember that conversation Sway. If we're convinced they're the same plant I can combine the two entries and use the Also Sold As field for the 2nd name. It will take a day for the system to recognize the change in a general search.

I found a 2004 discussion where it's called 'Black Runner'. That's the earliest reference I can find. What do you all think???
https://www.hort.net/lists/aro...

can't take credit for growing it, it's at a curbside of my building though - so i've been watching it grow ;). it was so-o puny at the beginning, thought it won't make it.
and they don't water it enough in the narrow bed - so all the leaves are drying up at the edges :(.
oh, and they don't feed it either - so i think that's why some older leaves are showing yellow chlorosis? on the edges.
as far as veining goes - i think it looks smashing! it's not a virus - that's why i uploaded sev pics with veining - you can see it on green leaves that are back-lit in 2nd row and also on the underside of the leaf in 8th pic. it's all the veins between spokes (big veins). but i don't know enough about viruses on colocasia, so don't know for sure. as the leaves mature the veining and stem change from maroon to darker purple - so the inter-spoke veining becomes more prominently purplish too.

i cut off sev runners that were trailing on the pavement and stuck them in water. they all had 2-3 small leaves going(but no roots) and now the leaves are all curled up :(.
don't know if they'll make it. i thought they root easily in water? and the plant is obviously very robust
i put some kelp booster that is used for cuttings and rooting to help it a bit. i'd say i should see in a week, if there's any root sign?

Yes, 100% no doubt that black runner and black ruffle are the same plant, usually if you see one marked black magic, it's black runner too!
Just bad ID or diliberate mislabeling to sell plants! As hard as I've tried, Ive never actually fought s true black magic!

The plant in question looks generally healthy, I looked pretty hard on my tiny screen and don't see much signs of DsMV, it usually starts right on the the rib veins and feathers out into the margins between veins, unlike that pic with the strong yellowing between the rib veins, which seems to start in the margin and work its way toward the rib veins... But I can't be sure at all, I do see a white mark here or there on the leaves... Without seeing it in person, it's impossible to tell if it's infected, truly it's impossible to 100% garuantee the ID of the plant from pictures either, but it certainly looks and sounds like black runner!

Those runners are doing just what I'd expect, with no roots they can't take up water, and since the connection to the mother plant is severed, then those little plantlets have no source for water, so the leaves wither and turn crispy! Even with roots that's not uncommon!
I NEVER root runners in water! It can work, but it can also rot them, I root mine in soil mix or peat moss, they'll still do all those things that worry you, but they rarely rot. My preferred method is to break the runner at the base of the plant, chose an appropriate sized pot, fill it halfway full with soil, wrap the runner around the inside of the pot, several inches away from the wall of the pot, then cover it completely with several more inches of soil. If the terminal plantlet has leaves, I still bury it very deep, but try to leave an leaves sitting just on top of the soil.
It's pretty foolproof but takes a few weeks to settle in, after a few months you should notice numerous small plantlets emerge from where you buried the runner, each knot or node on a runner contains a tiny plant, and is also where fresh roots emerge from.

thanks, sway! i might go lop off another couple of runners with green nodes, i did see runners like that.
but the ones i did cut off were the terminals with 2-3 leaves each. most of them had the runner itself somewhat dry already, but i left a couple of inches on to stabilize it and may be give it someplace to extract some nutes from? may be it was a bad sign that the runner was drying up? never handled these before.
i checked and i see already a few root nubs on some ! in one day?! that's not bad, i say. but may be they were there already?
i am leaving the leaves to dry on the stems to fully extract whatever the plant can out of them. and at least i can see that smth is happening...- it's all a fun experiment for me.
i'll put them in moist perlite on heat mat as soon as i see nubs showing. that usually speeds things up.

so, i submitted to add 1st 3 and last 3 as most interesting images to the database, if that's OK? as Colocasia esculenta 'Black Runner'. Is it worth putting the middle row too? as these are green leaves not so characteristic for the plant, but due to shading?
i checked for root nubs on my cuttings and they all have them, but all leaves are shriveled up. so nubs in less then 1 week, 5 days to be exact. i'll put them in cut-off bottles so i can see how fast the roots will grow. and put in a growers report when time comes

I'd say it's very characteristic!
They almost always emerge this color.

oh, good to know!
i have xferred all 3 into perlite + AV soil mix pots after 5-7 days and i already can see roots emerging on the outside on all!
they are in see-thru bottle cut-offs. and i have 2 young leaves ..green! that emerged on 2 biggest cuttings. so after roughly 10 days! i wonder if i'll be able to keep up!?

Swayback said:Yes, 100% no doubt that black runner and black ruffle are the same plant, usually if you see one marked black magic, it's black runner too!
Just bad ID or diliberate mislabeling to sell plants! As hard as I've tried, Ive never actually fought s true black magic!




The plant in question looks generally healthy, I looked pretty hard on my tiny screen and don't see much signs of DsMV, it usually starts right on the the rib veins and feathers out into the margins between veins, unlike that pic with the strong yellowing between the rib veins, which seems to start in the margin and work its way toward the rib veins... But I can't be sure at all, I do see a white mark here or there on the leaves... Without seeing it in person, it's impossible to tell if it's infected, truly it's impossible to 100% garuantee the ID of the plant from pictures either, but it certainly looks and sounds like black runner!

Those runners are doing just what I'd expect, with no roots they can't take up water, and since the connection to the mother plant is severed, then those little plantlets have no source for water, so the leaves wither and turn crispy! Even with roots that's not uncommon!
I NEVER root runners in water! It can work, but it can also rot them, I root mine in soil mix or peat moss, they'll still do all those things that worry you, but they rarely rot. My preferred method is to break the runner at the base of the plant, chose an appropriate sized pot, fill it halfway full with soil, wrap the runner around the inside of the pot, several inches away from the wall of the pot, then cover it completely with several more inches of soil. If the terminal plantlet has leaves, I still bury it very deep, but try to leave an leaves sitting just on top of the soil.
It's pretty foolproof but takes a few weeks to settle in, after a few months you should notice numerous small plantlets emerge from where you buried the runner, each knot or node on a runner contains a tiny plant, and is also where fresh roots emerge from.

@Deebie

Oops, I've been MIA. Things have gotten kind of busy here for a while, first the historic flood disaster and I've been running around trying to get all tenders under shelter or frost cloth for the last 2 nights. Whew! I can take a breather. I missed the post about curling the black runner in a pot, so need to do that tomorrow. That will be fun to see as the leaves emerge from the nubs. All the others are potted up and doing well.

an update - i took my wards to winter in sunny and warm FL - it did them a lot of good, and they were continuing to grow thru the winter.
this is a pic mid-dec. They were on water-wicks and grew very thick water-roots. and consumed enormous amts of water!

this is 2 mo later mid-Feb. You can see the leaf size increased quite a bit. I was feeding them liquid AV fertizer tripled in strength or even x4! that was all i had with me.
I confirmed that they grow them here Miami, FL in water - in ponds. they are everywhere...very common!


I have xferred them BACK! to NJ and they are in recovery ...more like in triage at the moment :(...so need privacy and NO pics for the moment ;)