''Dioscorea transversa'', the pencil yam, is a vine of eastern and northern

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

.Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families
/ref> The leaves are heart-shaped, shiny, with 5-7 prominent veins. The seed pods are rounded, green or pink before drying to a straw brown papery texture. The edible tubers are typically slender and long. There are two forms: an eastern

rainforest Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainfores ...

and

wet sclerophyll Sclerophyll is a type of vegetation that is adapted to long periods of dryness and heat. The plants feature hard leaves, short internodes (the distance between leaves along the stem) and leaf orientation which is parallel or oblique to direct ...

form which doesn't have

bulbils A bulbil (also referred to as bulbel, bulblet, and/or pup) is a small, young plant that is reproduced vegetatively from axillary buds on the parent plant's stem or in place of a flower on an inflorescence. These young plants are clones of the p ...

, and a northern form which occurs in open forests and has small bulbils and large inground

tubers Tubers are a type of enlarged structure used as storage organs for nutrients in some plants. They are used for the plant's perennation (survival of the winter or dry months), to provide energy and nutrients for regrowth during the next growing s ...

Uses

The tubers were a staple food of

Australian Aboriginals Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Isla ...

and are eaten after cooking, usually in ground ovens. The 1889 book 'The Useful Native Plants of Australia records that common names included "Long yam", Indigenous Australians from Central Queensland referred to it as "Kowar" and that "The small young tubers are eaten by the aborigines ic.without any preparation."

References

External links

Royal Botanic Gardens & Domain Trust, Sydney, ''Dioscorea transversa''Plantnet New South Wales Flora Online, ''Dioscorea transversa'' R.Br. Atlas of Living Australia, ''Dioscorea transversa'' R.Br. Common Yam Vine
at

Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants, also known as RFK, is an identification key giving details—including images, taxonomy, descriptions, range, habitat, and other information—of almost all species of flowering plants (i.e. trees, shrubs ...

Bushfood transversa Root vegetables Monocots of Australia Angiosperms of Western Australia Plants described in 1810 {{vegetable-stub