Elephant's Foot, Turtleback Plant (Dioscorea macrostachys)

Elephant's Foot, Turtleback Plant
Dioscorea macrostachys

Flowers on Elephant Foot, not known if they are male or female flowers, as it produces both.

How large are those leaves? They sure look like Dioscorea macrostachys leaves to me, not D elephantipes. but there is no scale to the photos, so can't tell for sure.

Hi there PB,

This is what the regular size leaves are, the blooms are on side shoots from here where I cut these ones off to make cement casts. The branches that grew on the sides where these were cut off are the branches that produced these flowers. I'll take some more photos and measure... they are still smallish and are growing, I just happened to see them yesterday.

Have you seen any thing like these before? And, really important part... will we get seeds??

Thanks.. for any info you can give.

Here is my little Dioscorea collection... Dioscorea macrostachys is the larger one on the left and D elephantipes is the light brown taller, but smaller one of the right (dinky one in center is D hemicrypta). Note the leaves in the photo- those 'folded' smooth shiny green leaves? Those are D elephantipes leaves. The leaves in your photo look more like D macrostachys, which are about 3-5x larger, flatter, and have lots of little lines in them, like they do in your photos.

This message was edited Oct 3, 2007 7:44 AM

Here' s a better comparison shot, with the larger D macrostachys leaves, and the dinky D elephantipes leaves.

Yes, you are right, that one with the larger leaves is what I have. I need to get those photos moved into the right in the PLantsdata base..

Have you seen it flower before and, does it produce seed?? Has your plant flowered?

You have some very nice specimens there. I like them.


edited to add: Thanks for catching that and I sent an error report to have them moved into the right one. Whew...!!

This message was edited Oct 3, 2007 9:52 AM

No, the flowering thing is new to me... that is cool... I see you are in the US... sort of big place... what climate are you in?

lol.. I'm in southern NM, near Las Cruces..lol..

I am from NM, but other end of the state (Los Alamos). Still, even at your end, you obviously take this plant indoors in winter? I live in So Cal right now and JUST barely live in a zone where I can get away with these species living outdoors, though under the patio roof in winter. This time if year it's touch and go with periods of cold and rain, with hot times, too... but as soon as the leaves look like they're starting to turn brown, it's time to hack them off and move every one under the patio.