FREE: *~*~*~5 Cinnamon Vine/Chinese Yam/Air Potato Bulbils~*~*~*

The listing, *~*~*~5 Cinnamon Vine/Chinese Yam/Air Potato Bulbils~*~*~* has ended.

Cinnamon vine, so named because the foliage is said to have a cinnamon scent when crushed, forms large, edible, long-lived underground tubers. Air potato has an insignificant in-ground tuber but the aerial tubers are edible and weight up to a pound. Cinnamon vine is more winter hardy and will survive as far north as Zone 5; air potato is only hardy to Zone 7.

The bizarre thing about these plants is that each fall they produce heavy crops of aerial tubers along the vines. The pock-marked aerial tubers are, for cinnamon vine, about the size of the end of a man's thumb while golf ball sized or larger for air potato. New plants start easily from these aerial tubers and are the main means of escape into the wild. The tops are frost tender and freeze to the ground with the first freeze.

Their leaves are glossy-green, heart-shaped and 3 to 5 inches long. These vining plants are modest growers - at least as vines go - and seldom produce vines longer than six or eight feet in length. They lack appendages to climb trees, so need a trellis or fence for support. If an upright support is lacking they are happy to sprawl over the ground or on top of low growing shrubs. The vines of cinnamon vine twine clockwise while they are counterclockwise on air potato.

Cinnamon vine and air potato are easy to grow and are sometimes seen in the collections of plantaholics. They are pass-along plants, not normally offered in the nursery trade. Because of their twining and sprawling ways and great persistence, make sure you really want it before planting one. They can be effective in covering out-of-the-way chain-link fences or similar places where you want a plant that will fend for itself.

They grow in full sun or moderate shade. Both of these yams appear completely unaffected by pest or disease.