I dug out an A. Calidora pup from this season that was in a pot and a C. Esculenta that was in the ground and the results are shown below. In all the pics the Calidora is on the left. These corms will be cured. You can see a small upside-down cone-shaped corm with the Calidora but you can't see any obvious corm on the Esculenta. Maybe it will show when the petioles and roots have dried and have been removed:

The bottom right inset pic is taken from the bottom of the Esculenta root mass:

This corm pic is from March and from it grew the C. Esculenta on the right side pics above. It was sold to me on-line as a Thai Giant but I'm not convinced it is one:

jay..so the colocasia corm is smaller than when you planted it..laying there on the pavement the roots remind me of a hosta..and yet christine's tubers are big..the alocasia has kind of a taproot huh?..these things confuse me lol..

I sure am getting a good education from all of you, the first thing I noticed was how darn clean you got the roots. I have purchased baseball size bulbs that grew into 4' leaves, I'm always surprised when they start to grow & grow & grow.

LOL christine, you would hate to see mine! I literally pull the things up, shake off the dirt, and throw it all in a paper bag. Yes, I'm lazy that way. But I think a big part of it was from my favourite potato farmer, who sadly passed away earlier this year. He never washed off any of the dirt on his potatoes to sell them - he said they stored better if you did not do that, which I found to be true for me. Here's to you, Farmer Stan!

This is a brief photo narrative about digging up and potting my Colocasia esculenta 'black magic' for a winter indoors. I got it 2 years ago as an 18" plant. It's my largest EE in 2 yrs of growing them. After a storm last month it was leaning at roughly a 30 degree angle so I had to shore it up with 2 stakes. When dug up, the root mass did seem small for the size of the plant so what the storm did made sense. I didn't cut any of the roots when digging it out. All of the runners were cut off. It weighed exactly 18 lbs after the dirt, all but 2 leaves, and 1 sm pup were removed. Yes, I did bring a scale outside and stood on it while holding the plant. I should note that a single leaf of a 50" A. 'borneo giant' weighs more than 4 leaves from this 6'4"(?) plant. So it wasn't tough to keep center-balanced in its new 5 gal pot. I didn't need to add ballast to keep the full pot from tipping or the plant from tipping over in the pot. The pot is so heavy after adding the soil and 1 1/2 gals of water that I'll need a hand truck and help getting it indoors. I had to add the water quickly to reduce the stress of the transplant.

The plant does have a corm that appears to have either rotted or been eaten by something in the past. I'm guessing it occurred last winter indoors when it had too much water and too little light in another residence. The damaged bottom of the corm appeared to have since healed. There also seemed to be a few small spuds in some of the roots but I couldn't tell for sure.

Some frost & wind damage:

I had to be careful with the handling because the contact points (leaves, petioles, roots) started to crush under its own weight:

The corm bottom looks slimy but it is not. It's just wet from the hose water runoff:

The plant produced 5 inflorescences this fall which can be seen here in 2 stages:

Update: I got help to safely bring it indoors. Then, about 45 mins afterwards, I realized that I might have missed a spot when cleaning off the plant. I've had worms and sow bugs on my floor last winter but never these. Maybe it was hiding between the petioles. I did hold the plant upside down to dump the water out of those spots. It was released in a wooded area. BTW: This specific species contains disease fighting properties that I believe could benefit the Robins and Blue Jays that eat them:

nicholsworth55 - the C. Esculenta corm from my earlier post does appear smaller than when I planted it. But I'll measure it when the petioles & roots have dried and have been removed. The Alocasia's taproot style corm reminds me of Cattail root stems I sometimes see wash up on shores.

christine - I used the Gentle Shower setting of my hose nozzle and a lot of patience spraying off the dirt and bark chips. I couldn't get all the pine bark chips off though.

LaLennoxa - good point about the root dirt. By coincidence that's what I did to all my dried Caladium bulbs. The reason I'm not doing that to the EEs is because I want to remove any hidden critters that could be hiding in the roots - just waiting to crawl onto my floor. That happened to me several times per month last winter. No place for them to hide on the Caladium bulbs.

Jay,Thank You for a very interesting lesson, I think your little critter is cute, my cat's would have enjoyed playing soccer with it. Incredible plants!

jay..thank you for the pics and info that you post..I prefer learning from a "real person" with true experiences..and down to earth explanations..not high minded "scientific jargon" lol..

Jay, I love your threads! I definitely hear you when it comes to removing unwanted "travellers" from your ears by washing off the dirt. Oh joy. Love the recent pics you showed of "Black Magic" - because this reminds me of the "Black Magic" I purchased years ago from Home Depot I think. They ended up looking nothing like the crazy black ones they depicted online; rather, they were exactly like yours. I realized there have been mis-labelled ears and to further compound that problem, many copyright issues. Which makes for some confusion!

The one ear which I would love to get would be "Coffee/Tea Cup" - bought some bulbs this season but they were total duds :(

You're welcome.

Thanks. I too plan to try a Tea Cup. When I do I'll place it by a lower window so during rains so I can watch the leaves naturally and repeatedly fill up with & dump water.

my ees are out!..hard to tell from this overhead shot but the bulb of the biggest is pretty big..but the one christine sent me is bigger and heavier (feels like a rock!) knocked off a lot of dirt but ran out of light to really clean them..made me sad to cut the leaves off..several small ones separated from the clump..a close up of 2 small ones laying on top..

I have a compost pile of EE leaves. However...looking forward to 2018 dates: I'm in z7a and on Apr 16 I took these 1st and 3rd pics below. The Colocasia Esculenta bulb was potted on March 18 and a month later you can see it with sprouts. It's a large plant now and still has some green leaves but stopped growing new ones. The Alocasia Calidora was moved from an indoor pot to this spot where it remains today (Nov 8) and is still growing new leaves after 1-2 frosts. It also went through a few April frosts after it was planted for the season. So I'll use these 2017 dates for 2018:

I put my stems and leaves in my compost bin too..the low for the next 2 days - 24 and 25..I wanted to get them out before they turn to mush..your zone is warmer than mine..when will you dig?..

Looks good Ann & Jay, the cold has arrived, its 28 here now and tomorrow night dropping down to 19, they had some white flakes up on the mountains already, now we can all take a long winters rest. Jay your good, already have 2018 planned !!

christine..just saw that it's 33 here..too cold for ees (and me)..happy that I got them out before it was even colder..

See that, your inner self knew you had to dig them up !!

yeah that's me..I get my work done but just by the skin of my teeth!!..haha

I guess we are all on the same page...cold weather coming imminently...just got the rest of my elephant ears and canna (which were still blooming by the way) in yesterday!

Because it will get to 20 deg F here in a couple nights, I dug out my Alocasia Calidora today. I didn't want its trunk to get zapped. 3" of the trunk were above ground and 12" were below ground. Otherwise I would have left it out because it looked great and was still pushing out new leaves.

I got it 2 1/2 yrs ago as a 30" plant and it reached about 6' the last 2 summers. So the older the EE plant, the deeper the corm. After the soil and leaves were removed, the stump & corm weighed 18.6 lbs. The corm is 15" long. I accidentally chopped off the bottom of the corm with a shovel. Hopefully this will result in 2 plants next spring instead of killing the main corm. Now I know for next year to dig deeper to get this out of the ground:

A faux pas from a hasty dig-out:

After the roots & petioles dry & brown I'll remove them, add peat moss, wrap in newspaper, and store on a concrete basement floor. This is my first winter curing & storing EE corms.

Jay, you win the prize 18.6 lb that's impressive. Looks like a lot of us are being hit with the Artic air, tomorrow night they expect us to be around 19, that's sure to break a record for NY, good job by all that got their EE's in

I carried my box of bulbs (still sort of dirty) into my laundry room..afraid the garage could be too cold..the ones that were a gift (from christine) have been in my entryway since they came..a 2 story space with a ceramic floor..not as warm as most of the house..

LOL Ann, the things we do for our EE's, they've taken over the bottom of my fridge

oh well..first things first haha..

This is what a 19 degree F night did to my remaining outdoor EE's:

Here they are 2 days earlier:The A. Macrorrhizos 'black stem' (on the left in pics above, and below on hand truck) had a 35 lb corm with stump weight. I had to use a hand truck to move it. The corm was 8" deep and is not easy to make out through the roots. It is shown with a yard stick:

19 degrees IS cold..in my opinion BAD for plants AND people haha..so you'll be out digging today?..

I'll dig today and tomorrow but it's too cold to use a hose for cleaning. The dirt will need to be picked off & shaken off.

I think I'm a member of the "what's a little dirt club"..the bulbs that someone gave me last year had dirt on them and it didn't seem to be a problem..I soaked them before planting and it cleaned them..

Jay, it seems you got the same Artic blast we got, it is easier to clean them off after the dirt has dried, that might be better than washing them, it would take them longer to dry, Ann had the right plan for hers, clean them in Spring lol..

christine..cute of you to call it my "plan"..was actually a slow gardener running out of time lol..

It was too heavy for me to move with the half clay dirt that I could not get all of off by hand. So I worked the ice out of my hose and washed it off. As I was finishing there was ice was forming on the plant bases. I hope that didn't harm them. See the updated '19 degree night' post from earlier today which now shows a 35 lb corm.

Jay, that is gigantic, it's got to be one for the record books, I hope you and your hand cart found a nice warm spot for it to dry for the next month or so. My tiny 3 pounder took 10 days to dry. Now I'm thinking ahead to Spring & Summer to watch that monster grow.

When your 3-pounder dried, did you remove the roots and petiole bases or are they still attached? I plan to record the drying times of the 16-pounders and the 35-pounder.

As I brought the 35-pound corm to the basement just after the thin ice layer on it melted, a bunch of soil fell off all over my floors as I was carrying it. The ice must have loosened it. By next fall the corm should double in depth. My math says it will weigh roughly 25% more which is a minimum of 52.5 lbs. The whole job will likely take 2 people to safely dig it out & store it.

Update on the 6 ft+ C. e. 'black magic' I dug out & brought indoors on Nov 5: On Nov 10 it displayed 2 new spikes in the morning. And this evening I took a photo of them - 1 spike became an inflorescence:

If you haven't seen it in the following post yet, look at the oddity on this plant. I photo-documented the oddity on Weds, Nov 8 and Sat, Nov 11: [https://www.houzz.com/discussions/black-magic-elephant-ears-dsvw-vd~4770997[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/black-magic-elephant-ears-dsvw-vd~4770997)

To answer your question, I cut back the roots right after I dug it. Totally amazing is your black magic, your photos are great, Spring is going to be very interesting for you to say the least, I'm looking forward to following the growth of your EE's

Ann, I tried twice to send you a msg, your correct houzz is having issues again. Sounds like you've got everything under control

Thanks Christine..getting tired of technology issues..overwintering is more work than growing them! Lol..

Update on the 6ft C. E. 'black magic' I dug up and potted as an indoor plant on Nov 5: It now has 1 new unfurled leaf and today it's 7th bloom of the fall (which is its the 2nd indoors) stunk up my entire home. So I read up on these inflorescences and, serendipity - I found that removing them enables the plant to focus its growth on the leaves instead of the inflorescences. That's what I also want. So I chopped it off and within an hour the distinct aroma was gone.

The first indoor bloom only filled 1 room with its aroma for about 3-5 days. But this one, which came when the plant was more acclimated to being indoors, was strong. It smelled like the green gunk I scrape off the bottom of my push mower mixed with a little mint. Not really that bad of a smell but quite strong on the 2nd day. I never noticed this aroma when it was growing outdoors.

When I was schooling myself on EE blooms, I discovered that Colocasias were in fact related to the Corpse Plant (Amorphophallus titanum, AKA: Titan arum if you're offended easily). It is known for the foul smell of its inflorescence.

Furthermore, I realized that my specific 6ft C. E. 'black magic' has 3 stems of clustered growth connected to its single corm. Each stem had/has leaves:

I had a few small versions of these plants indoors last winter in 4" pots. They never had more than 2 leaves or sometimes 3 leaves at a time. This plant had 7 leaves and some blooms by late October outdoors. But after realizing this plant has 3 stems, that still averages out to 2 leaves and sometimes 3 leaves per stem. I falsely thought that my single plant had 7 leaves, but it was really 3 plants with ~2.3 leaves each.

nicholsworth55 - The digging out and waiting for re-acclimation of the potted EEs are what I like the least out of the overwintering. The critters as well. But it's nice to have some foliage to look at. I'm also not worried about my Caladium bulbs. However, I do have doubts on whether my EE corms will make it to mid-May when I plant them outdoors. May I ask what you like the least about overwintering Aroids?

Lastly, I've noticed less fungus gnats indoors than a month ago in late Oct. I now see 1 gnat per day and some days none. Not 100% gone but drastically less than last fall/winter season. And I have more indoor plants now. My new soil mix, less watering, and using water soaked in 1/4 of a mosquito dunk at this point is working for the most part. I also have ZERO mites or mealy bugs. I switched from an insecticidal 'spray' to a horticultural & dormant plant 'spray oil'. I spray them every 2 weeks but will back off that frequency if I don't see mites.

jay..the simple answer about what's to dislike about overwintering aroids - the MESS lol..I have a mess in the garage, laundry room, entryway and kitchen!..pic#1,#2..2 new leaves and UGH aphids?..too busy to work on the inside plants yet but will wipe off as soon as I post this!..pic#3..still uncleaned but a leaf (just couldn't cut it!) has unfurled..pic#4,#5..other ee pot has a tree growing in it (darn squirrels) and some runners feel fleshy..the squirrels were digging in my caladiums when they were out..found loose bulbs on the ground..was considering just digging out all of the bulbs and planting mixed pots instead of one type per pot..maybe adding a small ee bulb too?..would that look pretty or just hodgepodge?..

Thanks for sharing. Though I feel bad about your mess...I feel a little relief knowing I'm not alone with these issues. I still have to scrub some muddy droplets out of the carpet leading to my basement laundry room where my bulbs are being stored. I dread the hand scrubbing of the carpet I know I'll be doing.

I don't have squirrel problems but I do have mole/shrew problems. Almost of my Caladiums had mole/shrew tunnels under them. It was easy for me to dig them out (because the moles did most of the work) but I continue to wonder what the exposure to air on the bottom of the bulbs may have done to them in an adverse way.

About 1/5 of my EEs bulbs have mushy parts with obvious fungus on them. The potted ones are doing better than the bulbs I'm trying to dry. I have yet to try cutting the mush off. And trust me, that will be several hours from any meal I eat. Finding some free time to do this uninteresting and disgusting task is not a top priority.

I have 2 potted EEs that I'm having issues with in addition to my Mojito. Below is the full photo story on my Mojito. The leaves droop and yellow not long after unfurling indoors this cold season. I'm not sure why. Day of dig out - Nov 6:

4 days after dig out:

1 week after dig out:

2 weeks and 4 days after dig out - these indoor leaves yellow and wither rather quickly:

This only gets about 3 hrs of dappled sun per day. It will get more sun when the leaves drop off the die hard tree that is giving it shade. I'm not sure how to fix this.

Overall my Caladium bulbs seem to me doing well. Maybe a 1/10 loss or less to fungus. Overall my EEs are doing well so far. But I do have losses...and time I need to spend on fungus mitigation. At this point I have a 1/4 to 1/5 EE loss as far as bulbs and potted ones.

Even with these losses and dreaded work, I feel this winter so far has been better than last winter indoor plant-wise.

I switched to All Seasons Dormant Horticultural Oil. It works better than other critter treatments I've tried. I had a problem with indoor Mints last year which had Aphids on them. The Garden Safe I put on them did nothing. I don't have Mints indoors this year but All Seasons Oil seems to have stopped all critters at this point. BTW - when outdoors, Ants control/farm the Aphids on many plants so you might not ever notice them.

Oh, I potted multiple Caladium bulbs in the same pots this past Spring. I won't be doing that again! After the plants came up the roots of different plants were in a huge tangle. So the next time I pot Caladium bulbs, all the bulbs will be in separate pots. I recently was given a bunch of small pots from a nursery (I asked for them) and another nursery sold a bunch to me for a dollar each. This spring I'll have a ton of bulbs in separate pots before I put them in the ground.

Next Spring I plan to plant the Mojito EE 'with' my largest red Brandywine Caladium. Only my largest Brandywine is completely red. That Brandywine will be as tall as the Mojito at about 2 feet tall. By 'with' I mean their roots will be touching and tangled. I'm hoping that will be a nice co-complimentary visual hodgepodge. I know many professional urban landscape businesses mix a single EE with smaller Caladiums in large pots at campus-style office building entrances.

I just saw this comment..and I've glanced at my phone several times since you posted it..my notifications aren't working grrr..in the fall we have raking (HUGE amount of leaves), chipping, planting (love clearance plants) and then bringing in the tropicals..once the tropicals are out of the cold they're safe whereas the other work has a deadline sort of..so there's a mess inside..I'll get it together eventually lol..I'm not sure how many caladium bulbs are in my pots..bought a growing caladium moved the root ball out of the nursery pot into a new pot..I loosened the surface of the root ball but didn't disturb it much..I think shrews and moles are less destructive to plants than voles..they disturb the soil (which affects the plants of course) but don't eat the roots like voles..your caladiums are probably fine..my neighbor has grown caladiums for years and she told me "I always lose a few"..for ees this is my conclusion..they will always do better OUTSIDE..it drives me crazy trying to figure out how to store them..read so many ways..I don't think any of mine are mushy but as you know I'm not up to speed with the cleaning and final storage places..I'm shocked to see new leaves since bringing them in..I bet my new leaves wither too..Mojito and Brandywine sounds like a great combination to me..I can't plan any combinations..don't know which caladiums are in which pots or what my loose bulbs are!!..oh well I love all of them and whatever makes it will be pretty to me..a pic I like..caladiums with annuals..

I just got done mower-mulching about 4 weeks worth of leaves (from 2 trees) and in a few weeks I'll mulch more each week for 4 more weeks (from a larger tree).

That planter setup looks like a White Queen with standard Begonia and Euonymus 'Winter Creeper' white variegated.

Good about the moles & shrews. Some Voles are now going after my Euonymus 'Winter Creeper' golden variegated.

Digging out & labeling my Caladium bulbs was a task that lasted about 6 weeks. It took about 20 mins each day a few times per week. I have 4 boxes with 27 labeled bags. Each bag has peat moss & a hand full of bulbs in them. Some are half full of bulbs. I may have mislabeled 2-3 bulbs:

Today I removed the mushy fungus parts of the plant from my largest E. c. 'black magic' bulb. It wasn't as bad as I thought and no fungus got the the main bulb. Also in the pic below are other EE bulbs after I cut more roots & petiole stems back:
That largest one looks more like a typical EE bulb after removing roots & more petioles. It began growing as it was drying for 2 weeks and 5 days:

that's the thing about leaves..they fall every minute..of every hour..of every day..for weeks!!..just when you think you might be finished..there's more..your ees look great..glad they weren't that mushy..so clean and fresh..what an organized system for your caladiums!..you have so many!!..I went to 2 liquor stores to get boxes..trying to keep the mess off the floors..I was outside all day..some raking, picked up sticks and branches (off the ground AND fished them out of my shrubs and small trees)..and then I scattered 3 coffee cans of hosta seeds..did this last year and found some seedlings this summer..

update..beautiful day..took the box of ees outside.. carefully rubbed off the dirt..the dirt and some of the roots just fell off..had one spot of rot (see it? top pic)..might trim on it later..so I'll read again tonight about storage..I'm open for suggestions..wrap in newspaper then a cardboard box?..should I rinse them a little?..received these early summer last year..they were unrinsed..I'm tempted to leave them as is..

Yah, that looks like rot before digging out. Most of my Caladiums planted in a natural loam under shaded Pine & Spruce needle mulch had a little of that on the flat bottoms of their bulbs. It was only superficial and the bulbs showed healing from it after I rubbed it off. Only a few in sunny area in potting soil had a little rot. I also elevated each of those when planting them. None of my EE's had it except my Thai Giant roots from over-watering. I see yours are sprouting like mine are. Currently mine are laying on newspaper and not wrapped in it yet. I'll wait till they dry more before wrapping. Maybe leave yours as is and not risk introducing a soaking. That's my yet inexperienced guess.

This is my 35-pounder after cleaning up after 2 weeks indoors drying. It might be about 5 lbs lighter now. You can see mush/rot on some petiole tips. The banana-like things might be premature blooms or petioles that are splitting in the darkness. I'm afraid to look closer. This thing is getting scary looking. Like something from a sci-fi movie!

I was happy to see just one rotten spot..it was like a smashed up brownie..crumbly..it just fell off when I touched it..then as I rubbed around the area it eventually stopped coming off..hard to see while laying on the sidewalk in this pic but I saw lots of eyes? buds? tips? ( don't know the proper term) on the bulbs..excited for next year..they are now in the entryway laying on cardboard..I appreciate your guess about not rinsing..if they were for sale at a store they would need to be cleaner but just for myself the dirt's not a problem..the worst parts of this job are over yay!..what a beautiful color on that big one of yours!..mine are not nearly as pretty..how's the Mojito?..any decent leaves?..

I think they are called Daughter Corms if branched off the Parent Corm. Daughter Corms that have buds are probably the equivalent to Eyes on a Caladium. That's how I've interpreted some illustrations anyway. We know what we mean.

The Mojito replaces its leaves once per week. It only has about 1 at a time per parent and pups. The recent new leaves have a richer color and no yellow tint or dry areas. Maybe because I added some liquid fertilizer and it's more acclimated:

This thread has an update on some indoor Mojitos. They get more sun and are doing much better than mine: [https://www.houzz.com/discussions/challenges-of-overwintering-colocasia-as-houseplants-dsvw-vd~4937566[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/challenges-of-overwintering-colocasia-as-houseplants-dsvw-vd~4937566)

More learned: It took 27 days for my smaller 4 1/2 ft C. e. 'Black Magic' corm to dry. It is 8" long. I trimmed it about 3-4x during that time. Now it looks more like a typical EE bulb. Today I noticed the bottom of the corm was chopped or broken off. Which made me look at my other EE corm bottoms. They all have chopped or broken tips as well. All my EEs concentrate some energy on growing their corm downward like a tap root. I'm not sure if this is for stability or vigor or both. What I'm curious about if their bottom tips are chopped:

* Do the corms continue to lengthen downward if their bottom tips are chopped?
* How do chopped corms differ from non-chopped corms?
* If the corm tip was not chopped, would this significantly increase the health and size of the plant?
* Do the corms grow upward and begin an above ground trunk? My largest C. e. 'Black Magic' which is potted now seems to display this. Its corm bottom tip was chopped. It also has new roots that are growing from the above ground parts of its base where past petioles used to grow from. Botanical literature I've read on Colocasias doesn't mention an above ground trunk. It does however state above ground trunks for Alocasias.

Regardless, one conclusion I've reached is that while transplanting, utmost care will be put into not cutting off or breaking off the bottom of their corms. When potted, a pot that is twice as tall as it is wide is ideal for accommodating/encouraging downward corm growth. I might build some out of 10" o 12" wide PVC pipe.

My 2nd largest C. e. 'Black Magic' (and 4 other EE bulbs) after 27 days of drying:

These are 2 pics of when the above 8" corm it was in the ground. It began as a pup in fall 2016:

TRUNKED COLOCASIA: My other EE below, which in Oct was over 6ft tall, had its corm bottom broken or rotted off in the past. When dug up I saw that the corm seemed to have stopped growing downward. It is obvious in the 3-photo collage below that it is now growing upward as a trunk. I haven't yet confirmed the reason this trunk exists. One commercial web source I found states Black Magic corms eventually raise up over time. You can also see 1/8” white worm-like roots growing from it. They appear like they are growing upward but they are all growing downward. These root locations tell me that I could safely add about 4 more inches of soil or re-position it 4 inches deeper. More roots in the soil could only be good for this plant's or tree's(?) health and size:

Update: The Alocasia Macrorrhizos 'black stem' bulb shown below was 35 lbs 28 days ago when I dug it out and then cut it back. It's 11 lbs now. I've since cut it back several more times as it dried. I aimed a fan at it so it dries quicker and has deterred fungus:

It had 8 nodules that were attached to the bottom of the corm. 4 fell off and 4 remain attached. They used to be purple but turned brown when they dried. I potted one when it was purple but it hasn't grown. The pups on the bottom center of the corm had some roots but the ones on the sides did not have roots.

This shows the nodes, an advanced node with roots(cut off), and one of the pups potted. All from the above bulb:

when I dug up my Jack's Giant bulbs I was extremely careful..my soil is soft and easy to dig..I didn't damage them..my bulbs have flat bottoms too and one had rot..daffodils have flat bottoms..maybe colocasia esculentas do too??..the alocasia sure has lost a lot of weight..

Good point about the flat bottoms. My A. calidora, C. e. 'Black Magic', and C. e. 'Illustris' bulbs will not will sit upright without being supported. After cutting off the nodules and pups from the A. m. 'Black Stem' bulb it will sit upright on its bottom. So will the C. e. 'Mojito', Thai Giant, and the standard Colocasia esculenta bulb. These should be fine in a standard pot and no extra deep digging when transplanting.

Thai Giant, standard Colocasia esculenta, and A. m. 'Black Stem' bulbs sitting upright:

The Colocasia esculenta is sitting upright with the help of its pup buds or daughter corms. If the daughter corms were removed, this would only sit upright on a softer surface like a lawn or if placed on top of mulch. Some of these that I've seen have slightly curved bottoms some are rounder. But they don't form a tap-root-like shape on the corm bottoms like the Black Magics. Those would not sit upright even if on a soft surface.

even though some of mine look mostly flat when you turn them bottoms up I don't think any of them would sit upright without support..I have shapes like a potato (longer than wide) instead of a tomato (round)..yours vary from long, round, to like a helicopter with blades sticking out haha..I'm still surprised they can grow in a pot that seems too small..

The Colocasia Esculenta 'Black Magic' I took out of the ground above in this thread on Nov 5 is now a budding corm/bulb. I potted the dry bulb indoors on April 8 and it's been in the plastic make-shift pretzel pot for 3 1/2 weeks. I chose that as a pot because I read that the less dirt in the pot, the less Fungus Gnats. This pot doesn't have much space for dirt. The budding bulb looks to me like a penguin statue. I'm hoping that at 8 weeks it has some nice full leaves on it and living in the ground. I can't tell if the buds on the sides are leaves or runners:

I planted it in the ground a week later. It has a chicken wire fence around it to keep rodents and basketballs from damaging the buds. As of yesterday all but 2 EE pups were moved outdoors and are in the ground: Alocasia Calidora(3rd year) and Thailand Giant(just bought):
Alocasia Macrorrhizos 'Borneo Giant' (2nd year) and Colocasia Esculenta 'Black Magic' (sprouting 3rd yr bulb):
By mid-to-late May when it is warmer out, these will begin providing some increasing shade on the dozens of Caladiums I will plant under them.