| Monocotyledon | Literature for Dioscorea bulbifera
Wagner et al., 1990, 1999; Lorence & Wagner, 2019. |
| Dioscoreaceae -- The Tacca, Yam Family | Bibliography |
| Dioscorea bulbifera | |
Common name(s): yam, air potato, bitter yam, hoi, pi`oi (Kaua`i) |
| General Information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Distribution | In the Hawaiian Islands, a Polynesian introduction on Kaua`i, O`ahu, Moloka`i, Maui, Hawai`i. | |
| Habit |
Stems twining to the left, to 30 m
long, slightly angled, glabrous, never with prickles. Tubers nearly always solitary, 5‒8 cm in diameter. |
|
| Leaves |
Leaves simple, alternate; petiole 6‒16 cm long, axil usually with warty brown bulbils; blade broadly ovate, 4‒24 cm long, 3‒20 cm wide, 7‒11-veined, glabrous, chartaceous, base cordate, apex shortly acuminate. |
|
| Flowers |
Staminate flowers in slender spikes to ca. 15 cm long, solitary or in fascicles of 2‒4 or in elongate panicles, flowers widely spaced,
each subtended by 2 unequal, ovate bracts; tepals ovate-lanceolate, 1.5‒3 mm long; stamens 6, all fertile; ovary rudimentary; pistillate flowers in pendent, rather stiff, simple spikes to 35 cm long, in fascicles of 3‒6; flowers 5‒6 mm long, tepals lanceolate, 1.3‒1.6 mm, staminodes 6, ovary winged, stigmas irregularly bilobed. |
|
| Fruit |
Fruit ca. 25 mm long, with wings ca. 8 mm wide. |
|
| Seeds |
Seeds winged on basal side only. |
|
| Chromosomes |
2n = 36, 40, 54, 60, 70, 80, 98 100. |
|
| Notes |
Naturalized and propagating vegetatively by means of stem tubers that fall to the ground and grow readily. |
|
