Jun 2
I had a question about how Dioscorea elephantipes grows, and I love this guy so much I figured I’d talk about it a bit!
So basically, this plant has a woody swelling at the base that expands via the cracks you see forming on it. It’s kind of like being able to watch a tree grow rings (except that there’s a ring for every time the plant wakes up and grows, which can be multiple times per year). The photo on the left is from a couple months after I was gifted this plant as a seedling in 2021. The part that photosynthesizes is a vine that pops out of the top when the plant is actively growing. Right now mine is dormant, so there’s no vine and it kind of looks like a wooden baseball.
Also, it’s in the yam family. That’s right. This is a yam.
