Re: Colloquial vs scientific names


----- Original Message -----
From: Don Martinson <llmen@wi.rr.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list AROID-L <aroid-l@mobot.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2002 9:48 PM
Subject: Re: Colloquial vs scientific names


According to this site, 'ratalu' is the common tropical sweet-potato!
These are commonly available at all local groceries here in Florida, called
'camote' by Latins.   They have purple SKINS, but the flesh is grayish
white, not orange like the common N. American variety of sweet potato or
'yams' served at Thanksgiving.
GOOD eating!   I will check on the Indian name for the canned, purple
FLESHED Yam (Dioscorea sp.)  when next I visit my Indian Grocery!

Julius.

>Thanks for all the extra research on the part of all the Suranoslueths! My
>local indian marts had, besides edoes and things that looked like
>Xanthosomas, a suran lookalike called "ratalu". Any ideas?
>Bonaventure


Here is a site that attempts to give some equivalence between
colloquial names and botanical names

http://www.winphatak.com/gazetteer/agriculture020.htm

It seems to have its share of mispellings and taxonomic inaccuracies,
however.  They say that "ratalu" is Convolvulus batatas (= Dioscorea
batatas?), but I wouldn't think that would look too much like a
suran.  Perhaps the "rajalu" fits this bill?

--
Don Martinson
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
l*@wi.rr.com
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