Dioscorea bulbifera

Dioscorea bulbifera
	Dioscorea bulbifera
Systematics
Class :	Bedecktsamer (Magnoliopsida)
	Monocots
Order :	Yams (Dioscoreales)
Family :	Yam family (Dioscoreaceae)
Genre :	Yams ( Dioscorea )
Type :	Dioscorea bulbifera
Scientific name
	Dioscorea bulbifera
	L.

The species Dioscorea bulbifera or air potato , Luftyams from the genus Yams ( Dioscorea ) is an herbaceous climbing plant . It forms edible brood bodies (bulbils) in the leaf axils , for which reason it is cultivated in the tropics. Natural occurrences are found in Africa and Asia.

description

Dioscorea bulbifera forms only a small or no tuber underground . If this is present, it is 500 grams to over 1 kilogram heavy and hard, brown to blackish, bitter, slimy and difficult to eat. The shoot is bare and unreinforced, it climbs 3 to 7 meters, according to other sources, over 20 meters high. Whether the shoot is right or left winding is indicated differently in the literature.

The heart- to kidney-shaped, simple leaves are alternate on the stem. They are long-stalked, the petiole is broadened at its base and includes the shoot, eyed ((pseudo) stipules), it is slightly shorter than the leaves and has short wings. The leaf blade is ovate to rounded in outline. The leaf margin is completely to slightly curved, the leaf blade is glabrous, with usually nine (five to eleven) embossed and arched, hand-shaped leaf veins, the tip is pointed to tail. The sheet becomes 8 to 17 centimeters long and 6 to 14 centimeters wide, occasionally a length and width of 26 centimeters is reached. In the leaf axils the sedentary, grayish to brown, often round to irregularly shaped, about 4 to 12 centimeters in size and scabby, blackish to nodular brood bodies with yellowish "flesh", which in cultivated plants weigh an average of 500 to 700 grams, but also can weigh up to two kilograms.

The ear-like , drooping inflorescences of this dioecious plant are in the leaf axils. The male inflorescences are simple or sometimes branched. The small, sessile and unisexual flowers consist of six eilanzettlichen, 2 to 5 millimeter long petals ( tepals ), which turn from white to purple in the male flowers, the female flowers remain whitish. The flowers are each underlaid by two bracts . In the male flowers, in addition to the six free stamens , a rudimentary ovary is visible, in the female flowers there are correspondingly six staminodes . The elongated flower cup of the female flowers is triangular, while the male flowers are short. The ovary is inferior to a dreiästigen pencils and lobed scars .

The short-winged, loculicidal and light brownish capsule fruit ( false fruit ) is oblong-rounded, about 2.5 centimeters long and 1.5 centimeters wide. It contains up to 6 brown, one-sided winged and flat, about up to 12-17 millimeters long seeds.

The number of chromosomes is 2n = 40, but also 60, 70, 80 or 36.

distribution

Dioscorea bulbifera is widespread in the tropics and subtropics of Africa, Australia and Asia. It can withstand dry periods of two to five months. In Africa it is distributed south of the Sahara and on Madagascar , in Asia it ranges from Pakistan and India via China to Japan and Korea , in the southeast over the Indonesian islands to Australia. In large parts of the tropics, including America, it is cultivated and in some places naturalized.

use

Leaf and brood body of the air potato

The above-ground, bulbous brood bodies are edible. Depending on the variety, they still contain toxic substances that have to be washed out and boiled before consumption.

Different parts of the plant are used medicinally.

Botanical history

Dioscorea bulbifera was described by Carl von Linné in his work " Species Plantarum " as early as 1753 and named accordingly. The name bulbífera is made up of the Latin components bulbus , "onion, tuber", and -fer , "-bearing".

literature

TK Lim: Edible Medicinal and Non-Medicinal Plants. Volume 10: Modified Stems, Roots, Bulbs , Springer, 2016, ISBN 978-94-017-7275-4 , pp. 235-252.
James A. Duke, Judith L. DuCellier: Handbook of Alternative Cash Crops . CRC Press, 1993, ISBN 0-8493-3620-1 , pp. 230 ( Google Books ).
Lauren Raz: Dioscoreacea . In: Flora of North America Editorial Committee (Ed.): Flora of North America North of Mexico . tape 26 . Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford 2002, ISBN 0-19-515208-5 , pp. 479 ( eFloras.org ).
Vincent E. Rubatzky, Mas Yamaguchi: World Vegetables. principles, production and nutritive values . 2nd Edition. Aspen Publishers, Gaithersburg 1999, ISBN 0-8342-1687-6 , pp. 163 .
Chih-chi Ting, Michael G. Gilbert: Dioscoreaceae . In: Wu Zhengyi, Peter H. Raven (Ed.): Flora of China . tape 24 . Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis 2000, ISBN 0-915279-83-5 , pp. 287 ( eFloras.org ).
M. Li, Q.-Q Yan, X. Sun, Y.-M. Zhao et al .: A preliminary study on pollination biology of three species in Dioscorea (Dioscoreaceae). In: Life Science Journal. 11 (2), 2014, pp. 436-444, online at researchgate.net.

Web links

Commons : Dioscorea bulbifera - collection of images, videos and audio files

Dioscorea bulbifera in CABI Invasive Species Compendium.
Dioscorea bulbifera at Useful Tropical Plants.
Dioscorea bulbifera at The Plant Observatory (images).
The air potato: Dioscorea bulbifera at flora-obscura.de, accessed on October 18, 2019.

Individual evidence

^ VJ Galani, DM Patel: A Comprehensive Phytopharmacological Review of Dioscorea bulbifera Linn. In: Int J. Environ. Sci. Nat. Res. 4 (5), 2017, 555650, doi: 10.19080 / IJESNR.2017.04.555650 .
↑ ^a ^b James A. Duke, Judith L. DuCellier: Handbook of Alternative Cash Crops . CRC Press, 1993, ISBN 0-8493-3620-1 , pp. 230 .
↑ Lauren Raz: Dioscoreacea . In: Flora of North America Editorial Committee (Ed.): Flora of North America North of Mexico . tape 26 . Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford 2002, pp. 479 .
↑ Flora of North America : counterclockwise, i.e. to the left; Flora of China : twisting left; Mohammed Amin Siddiqi: Dioscoreaceae. In: Flora of Pakistan. ( eFloras.org ): clockwise; Rubatzky, Yamaguchi: World Vegetables : winding to the right, with the explanation that when the thumb of the right hand is pointing upwards, the fingers point in the direction of the shoot growth.
^ Tropicos. tropicos.org
↑ ^a ^b ^c Rafaël Govaerts (Ed.): Dioscorea bulbufera. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved April 20, 2020.
↑ Helmut Genaust: Etymological dictionary of botanical plant names. 3rd, completely revised and expanded edition. Nikol, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-937872-16-7 (reprint from 1996).

[1] VJ Galani, DM Patel: A Comprehensive Phytopharmacological Review of Dioscorea bulbifera Linn. In: Int J. Environ. Sci. Nat. Res. 4 (5), 2017, 555650, doi: 10.19080 / IJESNR.2017.04.555650 .

[Duke-2] James A. Duke, Judith L. DuCellier: Handbook of Alternative Cash Crops . CRC Press, 1993, ISBN 0-8493-3620-1 , pp. 230 .

[FoNA-3] Lauren Raz: Dioscoreacea . In: Flora of North America Editorial Committee (Ed.): Flora of North America North of Mexico . tape 26 . Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford 2002, pp. 479 .

[4] Flora of North America : counterclockwise, i.e. to the left; Flora of China : twisting left; Mohammed Amin Siddiqi: Dioscoreaceae. In: Flora of Pakistan. ( eFloras.org ): clockwise; Rubatzky, Yamaguchi: World Vegetables : winding to the right, with the explanation that when the thumb of the right hand is pointing upwards, the fingers point in the direction of the shoot growth.

[Tropicos-5] Tropicos. tropicos.org

[WCSP-6] Rafaël Govaerts (Ed.): Dioscorea bulbufera. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved April 20, 2020.

[7] Helmut Genaust: Etymological dictionary of botanical plant names. 3rd, completely revised and expanded edition. Nikol, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-937872-16-7 (reprint from 1996).