High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Lasia is a genus of flowering plants in the Araceae family. The genus contains only two species both of which are native to Asia, Lasia spinosa and Lasia concinna. Lasia was believed to be a monotypic genus until 1997 when a wild population of Lasia concinna was discovered in a farmer`s paddy field in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. The farmer had been growing them for their edible young leaves. This species of Lasia had been known of previously only from a single specimen at the Bogor Botanic Gardens. At the time specimen was believed to have been a hybrid between Lasia spinosa and Cyrtosperma merkusii. The subsequent discovery by Hambali and Sizemore led to the realization that it was in fact a new species.