A new ( to me ) sess is taking root in my backyard as well as acommunity gardenI tend . It ’s a vine with heart - shaped leaves and small maturation that looks like galls or bumpy little nuts . The rarely seen flush of the works are flyspeck white blossoms that drop in grouping . But it does n’t really need those flowers because it rejuvenate itself more efficiently with those tiny white potato vine - face things . MeetDioscorea bulbifera , or the air potato .
Dioscorea, a Name to Remember
creation commence with figure . The genus and fellowship name of the air potato arrive from the ancient Grecian medico Dioscorides .
Pedanius Dioscorides wroteDe Materia Medica , which has influenced every herbal since the first 100 advertizement . What he preached is somewhat of a lost connection with realize a flora in every time of year of its growth . Dioscorides drop a line , “ For he who is only present at the budding of the herb can not be intimate it when it is full - adult , nor can he who hath test a full - mature herb , recognise it when it has only just look above priming . ”De Materia Medicadescribes not only characteristics of each plant he learn , but also their medicinal timber and U.S.A. . This work was so of import that it was translated into at least seven language and was the considerably - known pharmaceutic handbook for 16 centuries .
Dioscorides did n’t describe the air potato , which was discovered and named after his lifetime , but the entire phratry of yams was key for him . If he had found this “ brash yam plant , ” as some call it , he would have provided the folk remedies in exercise at the clock time , including those for treating dysentery , diarrhea , syphilis , sore and neoplasm .
In India and China , the air potato is an important and much - studied therapeutical plant , with many dissimilar cultivar used in traditional medicine . In the tropics , variety have been cultivated as a intellectual nourishment crop for centuries .
Here in the U.S.,Dioscorea bulbiferawas admit in a U.S. Department of Agriculture publishing on alternative hard currency crops in 1993 , take away into retainer the toxicity of the plant as well as its edibleness . The air potato might be a eccentric of waste yam , but that does n’t mean you may eat the Tuber of the tempestuous , uncultivated plant . They check steroidal saponins , powerful constituents that are used to synthesise Cortone Acetate and human sex hormones in laboratory . Eaten peeled or even cooked , the tubers could be toxicant . There is a aboriginal North American wild yam plant with much low saponins , Dioscorea villosa , which is at risk of becoming endangered because of overharvesting , especially in Appalachia .
Bulbifera, for the Bulbs
Continuing with the intro , the second name of the air potato tells us something about those little knob that characterize this special species .
Air potato ’s tubers and tendrils are only part of the reasonableness these exotic invasives grow vigorously enough to choke out entire trees in a short fourth dimension . They also spread through the bulbils found in folio axil , as see on many lily species . Garlic and onion acquire bulbils too , but theirs are institute at the tips of their long leave . Air tater bulbils resemble miniature tater but are actually modify branch that are aerial tubers . Tubers underground and bulbils in the air do the plant as food - computer memory outer space and as reproductive variety meat . Grabbing a vine to rip it out of the flat coat post the bulblet flying and pass around the seed , even though it ’s not really a seed . Nevertheless , even a tiny bulblet that falls to the footing is a new plant hold off to germinate up and out .
It ’s hard to trust that these invading exotic plants are still betray commercially as cosmetic vines , even though Florida has a task force assigned to battling the weed . Members of this task force have to move fast to keep up , because air spud vine have been account to grow as farseeing as 8 inches per sidereal day and as long as 150 feet in length . The air potato is one of four alien species in theDioscoreagenus , all of which have fertile bulbils . The two native specie do not . Thisdocument by the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Councilincludes a good ocular scout to tell them apart . One thing to look for is the left - roll habit of how the vine creeps upward .
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Take Another Look
Dioscorides ’ advice to really see plants by respect them in all seasons is particularly important for a plant likeDioscorea bulbifera . It looks similar to a native plant life that would benefit from habitat protective cover ; experts supply confusing and conflicting information about its edibleness and toxicity ; and it ’s healing secrets might be well - known on the other side of the world but here in the U.S. , the air potato is yet to be appreciate for its alone pharmaceutical potential .
As I was researching the air potato , I shot some picture of it ( or so I call up ) in the community garden , where it was taking over the gooseberry bush shrubs . I accept it was air potato : That was the simplified answer I found in one of my weed books , and I yanked it all out and tossed it in the compost . When I refresh my video time more closely , andreallylook at it , I see divergence and doubt this isDioscorea bulbifera .
The folio is more pointed than a distinctive heart form , and the vine twines to the right . This might be a unlike species , eitherD. alata , orD.polystachya . They both have bulbils but interlace the polar commission of the air Irish potato . If it isD. polystachya , or the Chinese yam , it has been naturalise and is more likely to be comestible . Just the same , I still do n’t want it covering up the Ribes uva-crispa .
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