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Dioscorea communis

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Common names

black bryony

Biostatus

Exotic

Conservation status

Not applicable

Structural class

Lianes - Monocots

Flower colours

Cream, Yellow

Detailed description

Deciduous vine with subterranean tubers. Glabrous. Stems slender and twining to 3-4m. Leaves with slender petioles to 15cm long, thin and ovate with a deeply cordate base. Plant dioecious, flowers about 4mm wide in racemes to 14cm long. Fruit approx. 1cm diameter, shining scarlet with 1-3 seeds.

Similar taxa

Glabrous vine with dark subterranean tubers, with thin glabrous deeply cordate leaves. Dioecious with small flowers in pendulous racemes, scarlet fruit freely produced.

Habitat

On and just inside the margin of indigenous forest.

Detailed taxonomy

Genus

Dioscorea

Family

Dioscoreaceae

Authority

Dioscorea communis (L.) Caddick & Wilkin

Ecology

Year naturalised

1970

Origin

Eurasia - Europe, SW Asia, N Africa and Macaronesia

Reason for introduction

Unknown

Life cycle and dispersal

Reproduces by seed and possibly fragmentation. Probably bird dispersed.

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