Sweet Potato (redirected from Sweetpotato)

sweet potato, trailing perennial plant (Ipomoea batatas) of the family Convolvulaceae (morning glory family), native to the New World tropics. Cultivated from ancient times by the Aztecs for its edible tubers, it was introduced into Europe in the 16th cent. and later spread to Asia. It is now the most important of tropical root crops and is grown in many varieties (differentiated by their leaf shapes). In the United States it is cultivated chiefly in the South, though a few hardy varieties are grown as far north as Massachusetts. Sweet potatoes are used mostly for human consumption but are sometimes fed to swine. They yield starch, flour, glucose, and alcohol and are especially rich in vitamin A. The sweet potato is sometimes confused with the yam, which belongs to another family. Sweet potatoes are classified in the division Magnoliophyta, class Magnoliopsida, order Solanales, family Convolvulaceae.

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sweet potato

Food plant (Ipomoea batatas; family Convolvulaceae) native to tropical America and widely cultivated in tropical and warm temperate climates. Botanically unrelated to the white, or Irish, potato or the yam, sweet potatoes are oblong or pointed oval, tuberous roots. Skin colour ranges from light buff to brown to purplish red; the pulp may be white (highest in starch) to orange (also high in carotene) to purple. Long, trailing plant stems bear funnel-shaped flowers tinged with pink or rose violet. Sweet potatoes are served baked or mashed and used as pie filling.

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sweet potato

a convolvulaceous twining plant, Ipomoea batatas, of tropical America, cultivated in the tropics for its edible fleshy yellow root

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sweet potato [′swēt pə‚tād·ō]

(botany)

Ipomoea batatas.A tropical vine having variously shaped leaves, purplish flowers, and a sweet, fleshy, edible tuberous root.

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Sweet Potato 

(Ipomoea batatas), a species of rhizocarpous plants of the genus Ipomoea, of the bindweed family. In the tropics it is cultivated as a perennial; in the subtropics, in annual cultures. The stalks (runners) are procumbent and 1–5 m long; the leaves, whole and palmatilo-bate, and the flowers, pink or white, large, and funnelshaped. There is cross-pollination. The fruit is a four-seed boll and seeds are black or brown, 3.5–4.5 mm in diameter. The sweet potato forms a nest of root tubers of various forms and coloring, which contain 24–28 percent starch and sugar when ripe. The tubers weigh from 200 g to 3 kg and even 10 kg (sometimes more). Sweet potatoes can be multiplied from the shoots of sprouted tubers and sections of the runners. The plant normally grows and develops in temperatures no lower than 20° c, optimally 25°–30° C. Sweet potato tubers are used as food; processed into preserves, flour, starch, and syrup; and used to feed livestock. The greens are a highly nutritious feed. The native home of the sweet potato is Mexico and Central America. Its cultivation is widespread in India, Indonesia, China, Japan, Spain, Italy, and the Usa. In 1965 the world planting of sweet potatoes (together with yams) was 16 million hectares and the average yield was 67 centners per hectare (from 50 centners in the Philippines to 198 centners in Japan). In the Ussr sweet potatoes are grown only in experimental plantings in Turkmenia and Georgia, where the yield is 400–600 centners per hectare.

REFERENCES

Aronov, V. L. Kul’tura batata v SSSR. Moscow-Leningrad, 1935.
Siniagin, I. I. “Kul’tura batata v subtropicheskikh i tropicheskikh stranakh.” Sel’skoe khoziaistvo za rubezhom: Rastenievodstvo, 1962, no. 3.

V. L. ARONOV