Dioscorea alata L.

 
  • Family : DIOSCOREACEAE
    (Yam Family)
  • Family (Hindi name) : BANA ALU FAMILY (बन आलु)
  • Family (as per The APG System III) : Dioscoreaceae
  • Synonym(s) : Polynome alata (L.) Salisb.; Dioscorea alata var. globosa (Roxb.) Prain; Dioscorea alata var. purpurea (Roxb.) H.F.Macmill.; Dioscorea alata var. tarri Prain & Burkill; Dioscorea alata var. vera Prain & Burkill; Dioscorea atropurpurea Roxb.; Dioscorea colocasiifolia Pax; Dioscorea eburina Lour.; Dioscorea eburnea Lour.; Dioscorea globosa Roxb.; Dioscorea javanica Queva; Dioscorea purpurea Roxb.; Dioscorea rubella Roxb.; Dioscorea sapinii De Wild.; Dioscorea vulgaris Miq.; Elephantodon eburnea (Lour.) Salisb.
  • Species Name (as per The IPNI) : 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 : Tropical 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
    • Sikkim : Sikkim
    • Arunachal Pradesh : Siang, Tirap
    • Meghalaya : Meghalaya
    • Assam : Assam
    • Nagaland : Nagaland
    • Mizoram : Mizoram
    • Manipur : Manipur
    • Tripura : Tripura
  • Native : Bangladesh, Bismarck Archipelago, Bhutan, Borneo, Cambodia, Christmas Island, India, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Islands, Malaya, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Philippines, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam
  • Exotic/Native : Native
  • World Distribution : Bangladesh, Bismarck Archipelago, Bhutan, Borneo, Cambodia, Christmas Island, India, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Islands, Malaya, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Philippines, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam
  • 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.
    • H J, Chowdhery, et al. Materials for Flora of Arunachal Pradesh. Volume 3, Botanical Survey of India, 2009. Pg.: 187
  • Read more :
  • Citation : Sankara Rao, K., Deepak Kumar (2024). India Flora Online. http://indiafloraonline-ces.iisc.ac.in/plants.php?name=Dioscorea alata. Downloaded on 13 December 2024.

Botanical Description

Field Image(s)

Habitat

India Distribution

World Distribution

Creative Commons License
India Flora Online by Herbarium JCB is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.