Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Freshly dug sweet potato plants with tubers Hemerocallis tuber roots. A root tuber, tuberous root or storage root is a modified lateral root, enlarged to function as a storage organ. The enlarged area of the tuber can be produced at the end or middle of a root or involve the entire root.
Root vegetables are underground plant parts eaten by humans or animals as food. In agricultural and culinary terminology, the term applies to true roots such as taproots and tuberous roots as well as non-roots such as bulbs , corms , rhizomes , and stem tubers .
A stem tuber is a thickened part of a rhizome or stolon that has been enlarged for use as a storage organ. [10] In general, a tuber is high in starch, e.g. the potato, which is a modified stolon. The term "tuber" is often used imprecisely and is sometimes applied to plants with rhizomes.
Oxalis tuberosa is a perennial herbaceous plant that overwinters as underground stem tubers. These tubers are known as uqa in Quechua, [1] oca in Spanish, yams in New Zealand and several other alternative names. The plant was brought into cultivation in the central and southern Andes for its tubers, which are used as a root vegetable.
The plant has high-climbing, thorny vines. The underground part is a tuber — a swollen, food-storage stem, much like an Irish potato.
The tuber is composed mostly of water and various polysaccharides. Traditionally, yacón roots are grown by farmers at mid-elevations on the eastern slopes of the Andes descending toward the Amazon. It is grown occasionally along field borders where the juicy tubers provide a welcome source of refreshment during field work.
The roots are an extensive and complex system of fine, fibrous roots and scaly rhizomes with small, hard, spherical tubers and basal bulbs attached. The tubers are 0.3–2.5 cm (1 ⁄ 8 –1 in) in diameter and the colors vary between yellow, brown, and black.
The tubers are often elongated and uneven, typically 7.5–10 cm (3– 3 + 7 ⁄ 8 in) long and 3–5 cm (1–2 in) thick, and vaguely resembling a ginger root in appearance, with a crisp and crunchy texture when raw. They vary in color from pale brown to white, red, or purple.