In article ,
Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:
In message , Rusty Hinge
writes

I'm starting a small tuber salvaged from a box in an Indian shop. (No,
they've run out of Indians for sale.) It (the yam) is in a flower-pot
on a sunny window-sill and hasn't emerged from the compost yet.

ISTR reading soewhere that bindweed is the only British member of the
family.

You're probably confusing yams and sweet potatoes. Dioscorea batatas, as
mentioned above, is a monocot (more closely related to wheat than to
bindweed).

But remember not to yams with yams :-) The word has always been
used with the approximate meaning "edible root" as well as in the
semi-botanical sense. Not all roots sold as yams are Dioscorea.
Popeye got it right: I yam what I yam.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.