Dioscorea alata information


Does anybody know what are the medicinal uses or any other ethnobotanical uses of Dioscorea alata?

If you know websites containing any information about Dioscorea alata please link to them.

Answer

Here is some basic information about Dioscorea alata and a list of ethnobotanical uses which includes medicinal uses and other uses of Dioscorea alata.

 

Dioscorea alata basic info
Scientific Name: Dioscorea alata L..
Family: Dioscoreaceae.
Genus: Dioscorea.
Common names in English: Guyana arrowroot, ten-months yam, water yam, white yam, winged yam, yam.
For common names of Dioscorea alata in different languages – See link
Description: Dioscorea alata, is a species of yam, a tuberous root vegetable grown in Okinawa, originated in the Asian tropics and has become naturalized throughout tropical South America, Africa, Australia, the US southeast. It is known as purple yam and has many other names. In folk medicine, it has been used as a laxative and vermifuge, and as a treatment for fever, gonorrhea, leprosy, tumors, and inflamed hemorrhoids. – for more info about Dioscorea alata See link

 

Ethnobotanical and folk medicinal uses of Dioscorea alata
*The information in this list is based on the ethnobotanical data in Dr. Duke’s Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases.
Dr. Duke does not recommend using this information for self diagnosis or self medication. – See link

 

Dioscorea alata in other websites
Dioscorea alata common names, economics importance, distributional range and more in the USDA GRIN website – See link.
Search PubMed (US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health) for academic researches with the search term Dioscorea alata – See link.
See if there is something in Youtube on the term Dioscorea alata – See link.