Cinnamon Vine

Cinnamon Vine, Chinese Yam, Air Potato

Dioscorea oppositifolia L.

(formerly Dioscorea batatas L.)

Dioscoreaceae (Sweet Potato Family)

▲ ▼ vine at Michigan State University Beale Gardens

▲ ▼ vine with flower buds

▲ ▼ tubers ("air potatoes") attached to vines in autumn

▲ close-up of aerial tubers

Cinnamon Vine, Chinese Yam, Air Potato Vine:

Herbaceous to semi-woody, slender perennial vine in the Yam Family (Dioscoreaceae), native to Asia that climbs by twining counter-clockwise (if viewed from above) and produce potato-like tubers at leaf junctions (hence the name “air potato vine")
Leaves are opposite, heart shaped, glossy green (sometimes coppery when first emerging), with 5-9 indented, somewhat parallel, curving veins emerging from the point where the petiole attaches to the leaf blade
Flowers are small, greenish-yellow in slender spike clusters at axils of leaves at tips of stems in mid to late summer; flowers have a cinnamon odor
Can propagate readily by dispersal of aerial tubers which separate easily from the stem
Has invaded fertile, moist woodlands in most of eastern and southern U.S. and can blanket understory vegetation, killing out native plants
Native wild yam is similar in appearance, but has alternate leaves and lacks the "air potatoes," or aerial tubers, and is not invasive