Air Potato Dioscorea bulbifera
University of Florida, IFAS, Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants	St. Johns River Water Management District

Air potato (Dioscorea bulbifera) is another non-native, invasive vine in Florida. Covered with large handsome leaves, it can quickly grow 60-70 feet in length, which is long enough to overtop (and shade-out) tall trees. A member of the yam family (Dioscoreaceae), air potato produces large numbers of aerial tubers, potato-like growths attached to the stems. These grow into new plants.


Dioscorea species are cultivated for their edible underground tubers in West Africa where they are important commodities. Uncultivated forms (as in Florida) however are reported to be bitter and even poisonous. Dioscorea varieties, containing the steroid diosgenin, are a principal material used in the manufacture of birth-control pills. Air potato is believed to have been introduced into Florida as an ornamental and a food plant in about 1905. By the early 1970s it was already recognized as a pest plant throughout the state.


How To Identify Air Potato


Air potato has a winter dormant period when the stems die back to the ground. After dormancy, the underground tubers give rise to stems which quickly grow, often reaching up to 70 feet long by the end of the growing season. The vine's stem is herbaceous (not woody). The stem is round, not winged, as in D. alata. The large leaves are up to 8 inches long and are heart-shaped (cordate). The leaf blade's basal lobes are rounded. Leaf veins radiate from a single point. The leaves have long stems (petioles), and are alternate on the stem. Air potato flowers are small, greenish and fragrant, hanging in relatively long clusters (panicles and spikes) up to 4 inches long. The fruit is a capsule of seeds. Air potato plants produce "aerial tubers" that are attached closely to the stems where leaves attach to the stem (axil). These air potatoes are greyish and somewhat irregular. Tubers also grow underground where they may be larger.

Here is an online UF/IFAS-EDIS publication about the air potato vine: Air Potato: Dioscorea bulbifera, by K.A. Langeland.

For more information and pictures about the air potato vine, as contained in the Langeland/Burks book, Identification & Biology of Non-Native Plants in Florida's Natural Areas, download this Acrobat .PDF file.


The UF/IFAS Assessment lists plants according to their invasive status in Florida. View the list here.

Click here to see the herbarium specimen image of the UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA HERBARIUM DIGITAL IMAGING PROJECTS.

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