Dioscorea transversa

Dioscorea transversa, the pencil yam, is a vine of eastern and northern Australia.[1][2]

Pencil yam
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Monocots
Order: Dioscoreales
Family: Dioscoreaceae
Genus: Dioscorea
Species:
D. transversa
Binomial name
Dioscorea transversa
Synonyms[1]

Dioscorea punctata R.Br.

The leaves are heart-shaped, shiny, with 5-7 prominent veins. The seed pods are rounded, green or pink before drying to a straw brown papery texture. The edible tubers are typically slender and long. There are two forms: an eastern rainforest and wet sclerophyll form which doesn't have bulbils, and a northern form which occurs in open forests and has small bulbils and large inground tubers.[3]

Uses

The tubers were a staple food of Australian Aboriginals and are eaten after cooking, usually in ground ovens.[3] The 1889 book 'The Useful Native Plants of Australia records that common names included "Long yam", Indigenous Australians from Central Queensland referred to it as "Kowar" and that "The small young tubers are eaten by the aborigines [sic.] without any preparation."[4]

References
  1. Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families
  2. Govaerts, R., Wilkin, P. & Saunders, R.M.K. (2007). World Checklist of Dioscoreales. Yams and their allies: 1-65. The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
  3. Low, Tim (1988). Wild Food Plants of Australia. North Ryde, N.S.W.: Angus & Robertson. ISBN 978-0-207-16930-4.
  4. J. H. Maiden (1889). The useful native plants of Australia : Including Tasmania. Turner and Henderson, Sydney.


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