Trees & Plants

Asiatic yam

Bileiy kattala

Dioscorea alata L.

Cultivated in homesteads Apart from its food value, the tubers are used as a remedy for haemorrhoids, or diabetes, leprosy, gonorrhea, strangury and helminthiasis. Th reat: The plant is a vigorous twining vine reported to be invasive in Florida in the USA and Cuba, Costa Rica and

Details

§ 01

uses: Apart from its food value, the tubers are used as a remedy for haemorrhoids, or diabetes, leprosy, gonorrhea, strangury and helminthiasis. Th reat: The plant is a vigorous twining vine reported to be invasive in Florida in the USA and Cuba, Costa Rica and several Islands in 6, the Pacific. It has the potential to displace native species and alter ecological functions.
family: Dioscoreaceae
synonym: Dioscorea globosa Roxb.
description: Twiners, root tuberous, tubers one to several, polymorphic, variously branched or lobed. Stem twining to right, 4-5-winged; wings sometimes reduced to ribs. Bulbils globose, ovoid or obpyriform, occasionally with rootlets. Leaves opposite × or rarely subopposite, 7-18 4-10 cm, broadly ovate or deltoid-ovate, base cordate or subsagittate, apex acuminate, primary veins 7; petiole to 8 cm long, winged. Male spike Th on axillary branchlets, paniculate; rachis winged. Flowers ca. 1.5 mm long; bracts to 1 mm long, deltoid-ovate; tepals 1-1.5 mm long, widely ovate, obtuse; stamens 6, free; pistillode conical. Female spike solitary, axillary. Flowers laxly arranged, sessile; bracts 1-1.5 mm long, ovate; tepals fleshy, ca. 1 mm long, broadly ovate; staminodes 6, very small; ovary ca. 3 mm long. Capsule 2-2.5 mm long, broadly obcordate.
native range: Southeast Asia
distribution: Pantropical to
english names: Asiatic yam · Greater yam · White yam
flowering fruiting: Th roughout the year
occurrence maldives: Cultivated in homesteads