Dioscorea divaricata (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Dioscorea divaricata Blanco

Family: Dioscoreaceae

Synonyms

Dioscorea foxworthyi Prain & Burkill, D. oxyphylla R. Knuth, D. soror Prain & Burkill.

Vernacular names

• Philippines: pakit, kiroi (Tagalog), dulian (Ilokano), bakliakang (Bisaya).

Distribution

Philippines (Luzon, Panay, Cebu).

Uses

Tubers used for food in the Philippines, baked, boiled or fried.

Observations

Perennial, dioecious, glabrous herb with stem spiny at the base, twining to the right. Tubers slender, fleshy, spindle-shaped, up to 2 m long, 10 cm in diameter, borne solitary or several together on stalks up to 1 m long. Bulbils absent. Leaves simple, opposite, herbaceous; petiole up to 7 cm long; blade cordately sagittate to ovate-hastate, up to 16 cm × 8 cm, with divaricate, auriculate base. Male flowering axes 1-2 together on leafless branches up to 60 cm long, each bearing more than 30 sessile flowers. Female flowering axes solitary, up to 18 cm long. Capsule wings up to 21 mm × 22 mm. D. divaricata occurs in forests and thickets at low and medium altitudes; it is not cultivated because the tubers grow too deep in the soil. It is closely related to and much resembles D. nummularia Lamk which is common and widely distributed in eastern Malesia.

Selected sources

9, 22, 60.

Authors

L.E. Groen, J.S. Siemonsma & P.C.M. Jansen