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Dioscorea pentaphylla
Fiveleaf yam (Dioscorea pentaphylla) is a prickly, twining tropical vine grown from a large underground tuber and widely cultivated as a food crop. It needs warm, humid conditions and a long, frost-free season to produce its tubers.
Dioscorea pentaphylla is a species of flowering plant in the yam family known by the common name fiveleaf yam. It is native to southern and eastern Asia (China, India, Indochina, Indonesia, Philippines, etc.) as well as New Guinea, Sri Lanka and northern Australia. It is widely cultivated as a food crop and naturalized in Cuba and on several island chains in the Pacific (including Hawaii).
Dioscorea pentaphylla is a prickly vine that twines counterclockwise around objects and other plants. It may reach 10 meters in length. The alternately arranged leaves are compound, divided into 3 to 5 leaflets each up to 10 centimeters long. The plant produces horseshoe-shaped bulbils about a centimeter long. New plants can sprout from the bulbils. Flowers are borne in spikes. The vine grows from a tuber. Specimens may weigh 3 pounds and may be located over a meter underground.
Dioscorea abyssinica · Water yam · Air yam · Yellow guinea yam · Black Bryony · Yam · Elephant's Foot · Wild Yam · Elephant's Foot Yam · Lesser yam · Yam · Dioscorea fordii
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Dioscorea pentaphylla by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
