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Baio
1st March 2006, 18:34
ianyone know if konnyaku is a member of the potato family? is it a nightshade or is it just called a potato because it's an underground tuber?

John Seavitt
2nd March 2006, 00:26
anyone know if konnyaku is a member of the potato family? is it a nightshade or is it just called a potato because it's an underground tuber?

None of the above, actually. It is the same type of thing as taro root and water chestnut - it is a plant structure that permits the storage of energy as starch to permit winter survival. This makes it distinct from tubers (all yam and potato) and bulbs (onion and whatnot).

John

Brian Owens
2nd March 2006, 06:51
Konyaku (Amorphophallus Konjac) is often called a potato or yam, but in botanical terms it is neither, as far as I know. It probably gets Anglicized as "potato" or "yam" because it's a tuber, and those are well known tubers.

It's definitely not a nightshade, the way potatos, eggplants, and tomatoes are.
It is, interestingly, related to the philodendron.

HTH.