Aloes and Lilies of Ethiopia and Eritrea

Dioscorea bulbifera
Description
Fig. 134.
Dioscorea
bulbifera, from
Tikil Dingay,
Gonder floristic
region.
5. Dioscorea bulbifera L.
DIOSCOREA 313
The specific epithet ‘bulbifera’ refers to the plant being
bulb (bulbi-) bearing (fera).
The species was described by Lin nae us already in
1753 from a plate from Her mann’s Paradisus Batavus.
It differs from the similar species D. gil lettii by having
3–10 m long stems, male flowers with 6 stamens, and
winged seeds. In contrast, D. gillettii has up to 2 m long
stems, male flowers with 3 stamens, and seeds without
a wing.
Climber, growing 3–10 m high with twining stems, not prickly.
Tuber renewed annually, subglobose, absent in several cultivars.
Aerial axillary bulbils variable, 1–10 cm in diameter, weighing up
to 2 kg; skin grey, brown, violate or purple; smooth or verrucose;
angular or irregularly subglobose or flattened; flesh mucilaginous,
white, yellow, purplish or liver coloured; toxic or edible. Leaves
always alternate; blade broadly ovate, to cordate, 6–22 × 4.5–17
cm, 6–8 nerves, acuminate at the apex, cordate at the base. Male
inflorescences: 3–5 spikes, 3–12 cm long in the axils of leaves or
on a leafless panicle, not spreading. Male flowers all point towards