Sweet Potato

Sweet Potato

Scientific name: Ipomoea batatas L.

English name: Sweet Potato.

Local names: Misti Aloo, LomhoAloo, Ranga Aloo.

Taxonomic Position According to Cronquist (1988)

Botanical Description of Sweet Potato

Habit: Cultivated herb, a trailer.

Root: Tap root, root modified into tuber, elongated.

Stem:  Stem prostrate, v trailing on the ground.

Leaf: Leaves pedat 10 x 5-9 cm, ovate to orbicular, base cordate or truncate, glabrous or sparsely hairy.

Inflorescence: Flowers 1 to several in axillary cymose.

Flower: Complete, actinomorphic

Calyx: Calyx lobes unequal, sepals oblong, the inner ones usually longer than the outer, cuspidate.

Corolla:  Corolla campanulate to funnel- shaped. 3.0-4.5 cm long, glabrous, pale violet.

Androecium: stamens 0.7-1.0 cm long, included, filaments hairy at the base.

Gynoecium: ovary conic. 1.5 mm long, style 1 cm long.

Fruit:  a capsule, ovoid, rarely formed.

Chromosome number: 2n=30 (Fedorov, 1969)

Economic Importance: Sweet potato is a delicious vegetable and food as well. The root tubers are edible, leaves ground with salt are applied to whitlows. It has medicinal virtue as well. Roots are laxative and aphrodisiac, useful in strangury and diarrhoea.

Table 1. Some sweet potato varieties are developed by Tuber Crop Research Center (TCRC), Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), Joydebpur, Gazipur, Bangladesh

References

1. The plantlist
2. Feedipedia
3. Krishi projukti hatboi