Yam (vegetable)
edible tuber
Yam is the common name for some plant species in the genus Dioscorea (family Dioscoreaceae) that form edible tubers (some other species in the genus being toxic).
Yams are perennial herbaceous vines native to Africa, Asia, and the Americas and cultivated for the consumption of their starchy tubers in many temperate and tropical regions. The tubers themselves, also called "yams", come in a variety of forms owing to numerous cultivars and related species.
Description
A monocot related to lilies and grasses, yams are vigorous herbaceous, perennially growing vines from a tuber. Some 870 species of yams are known, a few of which are widely grown for their edible tuber but others of which are toxic (such as D. communis).
Yam plants can grow up to 15 metres (50 feet) in length and 7 to 15 centimetres (3 to 6 inches) high. The tuber may grow into the soil up to 1.5 m (5 ft) deep. The plant disperses by seed.
The edible tuber has a rough skin that is difficult to peel but readily softened by cooking. The skins vary in color from dark brown to light pink.
“Yam (vegetable)” enters the record as edible tuber. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what vegetable, edible and tuber can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8047551. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Yam (vegetable)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.