Talk:Dioscorea alata

Old discussions

 * User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 17:28, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm trying to get some photos for this page and for the Siopao page. I have connections, they are just busy with school work. I actually have some Siopao at home .... Andrew Powell 21:32, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Differences from Taro
I never see Ube in smoothees at non-filipino restraunts. Its always taro. Why is this?

Reason
This is because Ube is a very different type of food that is uncommon in the west. These "non-filipino" restaurants have not been welcomely introduced because of its diversity. It may be the fact of cultural racism or difference that it is not used. Ube is a harmless and delicious "vegetable" that you can enjoy at almost any filipino restaurant or oriental market in treats or deserts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.62.155.146 (talk) 00:26, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

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Need to cross ref or merge
This item needs to be rationalised with the entry under Yam, see Yam_(vegetable). Earthlyreason (talk) 14:14, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved.   A rbitrarily 0   ( talk ) 20:30, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Ube → — page name should be changed to taxonomy name per WPMOS. Chris (クリス • フィッチュ) (talk) 15:03, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Support. "Ube" is not the name universally used in English. Purple yam is common in a few other countries besides the Philippines and it is not called "ube" there. --Polaron | Talk 14:59, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

As Invasive exotic
I would like to add that Dioscorea alata is an invasive exotic plant in the united states.

Weed problems
Dioscorea alata is an introduced plant persisting in the wild in the United States in Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It is also an invasive species, at least in Florida.

Stray comment from article page
On May 2, 2011 anon user at Ip address 87.194.61.202 placed this comment under a link in the internal links sect. on the article page:


 * (There appears to be no information about ube or purple yam at the site listed above.)

After checking the site, the comment turned out to be correct, so I removed the link. Also removed the comment to here. Hamamelis (talk) 10:33, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Requested move
Purple yam → Dioscorea alata – This plant is known by many common names in English, "purple yam" being not even the most common, and possibly not very common from the references I have found so far. Please see NC_(flora) for guidance. Hamamelis (talk) 12:25, 26 May 2011 (UTC) Support Dioscorea alata is far more common of a name for this plant, by a factor of 18+ according to a google book search of the two names. First Light (talk) 14:45, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Support Common names should only be titles for articles, in my view, (a) when the species is well-known to the general public rather than specialists under a common name (b) when that name is clearly the most used of potential common names. The article makes clear that (b) is not met. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:50, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Support Personally I'd rather have all plant articles under scientific names. Plant product articles should come under their common names, but in my view having plant taxon articles under common names is helping perpetuate ignorance. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 14:14, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * And confusion, since 'real' common names, i.e. ones that are traditional and not just made up for the sake of having a common name, are often very local, and certainly national. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:47, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Support: No primary English name.--Curtis Clark (talk) 16:59, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Support. Dioscorea alata appears to be the more common name. Google suggests "Water yam" as a synonym, making no mention of "Purple yam" (with the exception of this Wikipedia article). Guoguo12  (Talk)  23:41, 29 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I've moved the article as requested. It seems the article's previous title came about due to its original author(s) being filipino: "purple yam" was quoted as being the English translation of the Tagalog word for the plant, ube. --Hadal (talk) 06:36, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Foliage pictures are wrong
The photographs are not D. alata. They are another Dioscorea, likely bulbifera. This is a serious error and should be remedied, as D. builbifera is poisonous and should not be eaten, except for the nonpoisonous cultivated varieties. Ufdionysus (talk) 01:24, 14 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I've replaced the picture. --  Obsidi ♠ n   Soul   03:41, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Elucidating purple yam and ube
Dioscorea alata is commonly white, and referred to as "white yam" and "winged yam." The population of invasive D. alata in Florida are all white. A purple variety exists in cultivation. This is one of the things called "ube". I don't know the origin of it and it probably exists in a wild population somewhere in its native range, but I don't know the frequency. I've been told the "real" ube is a purple variety of Dioscorea bulbifera. A purple type of sweet potato, (genus Ipomoea), with white skin, is also commonly referred to as "ube." That sweet potato is also known as the Okinawa purple sweet potato. Ufdionysus (talk) 01:35, 14 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Ube or Ubi originates from the word for the plant in the Philippines. Dioscorea alata is predominantly purple in its native range (Southeast Asia). It is one of the oldest cultivated root crops, and the white varieties originated from S.E. Asian crops carried by Austronesian settlers as they colonized the islands of the Pacific. The Hawaiian name and Tahitian for the plant (uhi and ʻufi) are still similar to the Filipino word. All of them are Austronesian languages. While the white variety may be predominant in N. America, its distribution there is not native.--  Obsidi ♠ n   Soul   03:29, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Anthocyanins
Anybody know if the colour is due to anthocyanins? 79.79.251.126 (talk) 12:43, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Merge Kinampay here?
Kinampay seems to be about a specific cultivar of Dioscorea alata. I think it should be merged into this article. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:12, 16 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Agree. I also agree with your reversion because of the improper tone and the incorrect inclusion of the Okinawan sweet potato (which is actually Ipomoea batatas). But D. alata does grow aerial bulbils, much like D. bulbifera and other Dioscorea species. USDA reports seem to indicate that it's rare and are cylindrical in shape in D. alata (but it's flawed as they only seem to describe the Florida variety).-- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  16:59, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Okinawa Beni-imo
This articles states [Dioscorea alata] is sometimes confused with ... the Okinawa sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas cv. Ayamurasaki). However, the sweet potato article states that In Japan, both sweet potatoes (called "satsuma-imo") and true purple yams (called "daijo" or "beni-imo") are grown. And the Yam_(vegetable) article states that In Okinawa, purple yams (Dioscorea alata) are grown. This is known locally as daijo (大薯) or beniimo (紅芋). The Japanese edition of Wikipedia also has a redirect from Beni-imo to Dioscorea alata. All of these statements are unsourced, but the first seems to be at odds with all the others. My understanding is that both sweets potatoes and D. alata are grown in Okinawa, and I've added this to the sentence above. Computermacgyver (talk) 10:24, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

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Pronunciation of Ube
I have updated the pronunciation of ube to reflect a leading instead of. All the sources I found online (pronunciation videos, dictionary sound bites, and Lexico) all agreed on the weak vowel. Ube is also the name of a port city in Japan which does seem to be pronounced with the strong vowel, but as best I can tell they are not related, the name for the yam is a loanword from Tagalog. I'd be glad to see citations or info from anyone more familiar with Tagalog than I, but other sources seemed unanimous that I went ahead and changed it. There did seem to be variance on the latter vowel, so I added an alternate pronunciation for that. --The Human Spellchecker (talk) 20:17, 20 August 2021 (UTC)