ID this twiner

[Alok Goyal]

Hallo all

"what is this" rounded structure with primordial roots (i suppose) on "which is this" plant. 

The plant is a twiner with heart shaped leaves. plant is covering the fence of my house at Mohali (punjab).

temperature - 27-28C

Humidity ~ 70%

Altitude - 348m

the twigs and stem of the twiner have some pink or sometimes deep red coloured  membranous appendages along the length of whole branch. and these are especially prominent around nodes.

Alok

[Vijayasankar]

Alok ji, "this" is the bulbil, meant for vegetative propagation, found in certain species of Dioscorea, Amorphophallus etc. these bulbils germinate under favorable condition to give rise new plantlets asexually.

 

Your plant is Dioscorea alata, i think.

With regards

Vijayasankar

[mani nair]

looks like yam.

Mani.

[Gurcharan Singh]

Membranous appendages may represent wings, plus opposite leaves may suggest D. alata, which I had upploaded from Delhi sometimes back, though I have never seen such bulbils.

-- 
Dr. Gurcharan Singh
Retired  Associate Professor
SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007
Res: 932 Anand Kunj, Vikas Puri, New Delhi-110018.
Phone: 011-25518297  Mob: 9810359089
http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45/ 

[Pankaj Kumar]

Also called as AIR POTATO!!
Pankaj

--
***********************************************
"TAXONOMISTS GETTING EXTINCT AND SPECIES DATA DEFICIENT !!"

Pankaj Kumar Ph.D. (Orchidaceae)
Research Associate
Greater Kailash Sacred Landscape Project
Department of Habitat Ecology
Wildlife Institute of India
Post Box # 18
Dehradun - 248001, India

[Vijayasankar]

Is it used as vegetable, Pankaj?

With regards

Vijayasankar

[Pankaj Kumar]

I am nto sure if it is edible. Its just that it looks like potato
hanging in air.
Pankaj

[mani nair]

Yes it is edible.  I have seen tribals selling this in our Vegetable market  (Dombivli, Maharashtra)

Regards,

Mani.

[Vijayasankar]

Thats an useful info Mani ji, thanks.

 

Pankaj, yes, D. bulbifera is known as 'air potato'. This reminds me an incident.

 

During our 'Village Botanists' training program, a participant (a knowledgeable villager) aptly called this species (D. bulbifera) as 'Urulai valli kodi' [urulai = potato; valli kodi = Dioscorea spp.]. He had not seen the plant in his region earlier and there is no such name exist for this plant in the literature (?), he simply coined a new name, not only for this but also for few other uncommon plants. Another example could be this: He spontaneously called Oberonia (again a new plant for him) as 'ottu kathazhai' [ottu denotes an epiphyte; kathazhai = Agave]. Importantly all participants incl. nattuvaidhyas / traditional healers from different distrists of TN liked and accepted the new names. That was interesting.

With regards

Vijayasankar

[Pankaj Kumar]

Yeah, thats interesting Vijay. That goes against one of our
discussions on local and botanical names few days back.

Ironically, for orchids, tribals call all epiphytic ones as BANDA,
which basically means a plant growing on other plant or tree. So at
times I had lot of problem in making them understand.

Local names are also based on the closest resemblances of the
concerned species with any other common plant. For example, tribals
call Pholidota imbricata as Pathal Kela, literally meaning BANANA
GROWING ON ROCKS. Pointing towards the almost banana shaped bulbs and
the clusters of P. imbricata. Vanda tessellata, they call BANDAR
KANWA, literally meaning EAR LIKE A MONKEY, pointing towards the ear
like shape of petals and sepals. Oberonia falconeri they call KAN
CHAPRA, literally meaning FLAT EAR, pointing towards the flat ear like
structure of the plant body projecting out from the host tree. They
have their own way of naming....

Regards
Pankaj

[Gurcharan Singh]

When I first photographed D. alata in Delhi University, the gardener gave me its name as Mati Alu, It produces both aerial potato like bulbils and underground tubers. It was introduced from Asia as a possible food source in the early 1800s to other countries. In some countries it is presently being cultivated for medicinal uses.

[Gurcharan Singh]

Resurfacing again for ID 

Earlier feedback

Vijayasankar ji and me...................................................Dioscorea alata

-- 
Dr. Gurcharan Singh
Retired  Associate Professor
SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007
Res: 932 Anand Kunj, Vikas Puri, New Delhi-110018.
Phone: 011-25518297  Mob: 9810359089
http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45/ 

[Dinesh Valke]

... remember to have read that D. alata is the only Dioscorea having oppositely arranged leaves.
Regards.

[Balkar Arya]

May be Dioscorea oppositifolia
Twining from left to right

--
Regards

Dr Balkar Singh
Head, Deptt. of Botany and Biotechnology
Arya P G College, Panipat
Haryana-132103
09416262964

[J.M. Garg]

Forwarding again for Id confirmation or otherwise pl.

Some earlier relevant feedback:

“Alok ji, "this" is the bulbil, meant for vegetative propagation, found in certain species of Dioscorea, Amorphophallus etc. these bulbils germinate under favorable condition to give rise new plantlets asexually. 

Your plant is Dioscorea alata, i think.

With regards

Vijayasankar”

 

“Membranous appendages may represent wings, plus opposite leaves may suggest D. alata, which I had upploaded from Delhi sometimes back, though I have never seen such bulbils.

--
Dr. Gurcharan Singh”

 

“Also called as AIR POTATO!!
Pankaj”

"... remember to have read that D. alata is the only Dioscorea having oppositely arranged leaves." from Dinesh ji.

"May be Dioscorea oppositifolia
Twining from left to right

--
Regards

Dr Balkar Singh"

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alok Goyal <alok...@gmail.com>
Date: 10 September 2010 10:20
Subject: [efloraofindia:47065] ID this twiner
To: indian...@googlegroups.com

--

With regards,
J.M.Garg (jmg...@gmail.com)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jmgarg1
'Creating awareness of Indian Flora & Fauna'
The whole world uses my Image Resource of more than a thousand species & eight thousand images of Birds, Butterflies, Plants etc. (arranged alphabetically & place-wise): http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:J.M.Garg. You can also use them for free as per liberal licensing conditions attached with each image.

For identification, learning, discussion & documentation of Indian Flora, please visit/ join our Google e-group- Efloraofindia:http://groups.google.co.in/group/indiantreepix (more than 1420 members & 52,000 messages on 26/10/10 & with a database of around 4200 species on 30/9/10)

[Gurcharan Singh]

Forwarding again for Id confirmation or otherwise pl.

Some earlier relevant feedback:

“Alok ji, "this" is the bulbil, meant for vegetative propagation, found in certain species of Dioscorea, Amorphophallus etc. these bulbils germinate under favorable condition to give rise new plantlets asexually. 

Your plant is Dioscorea alata, i think.

With regards

Vijayasankar”

 

“Membranous appendages may represent wings, plus opposite leaves may suggest D. alata, which I had upploaded from Delhi sometimes back, though I have never seen such bulbils.

-- 
Dr. Gurcharan Singh”

 

“Also called as AIR POTATO!!
Pankaj”

"... remember to have read that D. alata is the only Dioscorea having oppositely arranged leaves." from Dinesh ji.

"May be Dioscorea oppositifolia
Twining from left to right

-- 
Regards

Dr Balkar Singh"

-- 
Dr. Gurcharan Singh
Retired  Associate Professor
SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007
Res: 932 Anand Kunj, Vikas Puri, New Delhi-110018.
Phone: 011-25518297  Mob: 9810359089
http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45/ 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alok Goyal <alok...@gmail.com>

Date: Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 9:50 PM

Subject: [efloraofindia:47065] ID this twiner
To: indian...@googlegroups.com

[C KUNHIKANNAN]

yes it is Dioscorea alata. it is not Dioscorea bulbifera. It is not D.
opositifoila. Both the under ground rhizome and tubers in air are
edible after boiling or preparing some curries with tamarind. It will
give very big tubers weighing more than ten kg. under cultivation. the
portion attached to the aerial stem and aerial tubers are used for
planting. Plants from aerial tubers starts giving better rhizome
production in second year. The aerial tubers are mainly for spreading
the species.
D.tomentosa and D.pentaphylla also have these types of aerial tubers.
they are having digitate leaves.
kunhikannan

--
Dr. C.Kunhikannan,
Division of Biodiversity,
Institute of Forest Genetics and Tree Breeding,
Forest Campus,  R.S.Puram,
Coimbatore-641002, Tamilnadu.

[Pankaj Kumar]

Dioscorea alata L. Sp. Pl. 2: 1033. 1753

Type: Lectotype - Herb. Linn 1184.2 (LINN)

Regards
Pankaj

--