Re: Colloquial vs scientific names

From: "Julius Boos" ju-bo at msn.com> on 2002.04.26 at 15:01:29(8645) 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. +More >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 Mailto:llmen@wi.rr.com

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