Re: Colloquial vs scientific names

From: "Julius Boos" ju-bo at msn.com> on 2002.04.26 at 23:54:40(8656) ----- Original Message ----- To: Multiple recipients of list AROID-L Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2002 9:48 PM Subject: Re: Colloquial vs scientific names OK---sorry for the misinformation (below) , but that site is INCORRECT---I went to my Indian grocery, and 'ratalu' is in fact the Dioscorea sp. w/ the violet flesh, they even have it in cans. Lots of other names on the site are very old and/or incorrect! The shop keeper tole me the purple-skinned sweet potato is called 'bonato' in his area of India, a 'take off' on the name for it in Latin America whixch is spelt the same but pronounced with the ~ above the n, making the 'enyay' sound. Julius +More >>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 Mailto:llmen@wi.rr.com

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