• Family : DIOSCOREACEAE
  (Yam Family)
• Family (Hindi name) : BANA ALU FAMILY (बन आलु)
• Family (as per The APG System III) : DIOSCOREACEAE
• Synonym(s) : Dioscorea globosa Roxb.
• Species Name (as per The Plant List) : Dioscorea alata L.
• Common name : Greater yam, Asiatic yam, Yam, Water yam, White yam
• Vernacular name : Chupri alu, Khamalu, Gurania-alu, Kamalu (Hindi); Tunagenaasu, Mundi genasu (Kannada); Alukam (Sanskrit); Coradu (Marathi); Kambo alu, Kham alu (Oria); Kaachil, Kaavuth (Malayalam)
• Habit : Climber
• Habitat : Dry deciduous forests
• Comments / notes : Often cultivated for its edible tubers, also naturalized
• Flower, Fruit : Throughout the year
• Distribution :
  • Kerala : All districts of Kerala
  • Maharashtra : Bhandara district, Pune district, Raigad district, Sindhudurg district, Thane district
  • Odisha : Cultivated
• World Distribution : Cultivated in tropics
• Conservation Status : Not Evaluated (NE)
• Literature : H.O. Saxena & M. Brahmam, 1995- Flora of Orissa Vol. 3; B. D. Sharma, S. Karthikeyan & N. P. Singh 1996 - Flora of Maharashtra state - Monocotyledons; Sasidharan, N. 2011. Flowering plants of Kerala. DVD, V 2, KFRI.
• Citation : Sankara Rao, K., Raja K Swamy, Deepak Kumar, Arun Singh R. and K. Gopalakrishna Bhat (2019). Flora of Peninsular India. http://peninsula.ces.iisc.ac.in/plants.php?name=Dioscorea alata. Downloaded on 21 November 2024.

Botanical Description

Field Image(s)