Dioscorea communis(L.) Caddick & Wilkin

WFO wfo-0000389997 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Dioscorea communis, photographed by Jason Grant
fig. a Jason Grant, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-11 / obs. 205225289
Dioscorea communis, photographed by Rachel Webster
fig. b Rachel Webster, CC0 1.0 / obs. 202784810
Dioscorea communis, photographed by Юрий Данилевский (Yuriy Danilevsky)
fig. c Юрий Данилевский (Yuriy Danilevsky), CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202254548
Dioscorea communis, photographed by Eleftherios Katsillis
fig. d Eleftherios Katsillis, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201328338
Dioscorea communis, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. e Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199771913
Dioscorea communis, photographed by scolym
fig. f scolym, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203605038
Dioscorea communis, photographed by Alessia Guggisberg
fig. g Alessia Guggisberg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199691301
Dioscorea communis, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. h Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198699874

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 31 botanical countries

Regions where Dioscorea communis is native: Algeria, Azores, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, East Aegean Is., Iran, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Albania, Austria, Baleares, Belgium, Bulgaria, Corse, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Krym, NW. Balkan Pen., Portugal, Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe AlgeriaLibyaMoroccoTunisiaEast Aegean Is.IranNorth CaucasusTranscaucasusTürkiyeAlbaniaAustriaBelgiumBulgariaCorseFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryItalyKrymNW. Balkan Pen.PortugalRomaniaSiciliaSpainSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-Europe AzoresBalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Dioscorea communis, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Baleares BAL
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Corse COR
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Azores AZO
Libya LBY
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN
East Aegean Is. EAI ASIA-TEMPERATE
Iran IRN
North Caucasus NCS
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR

Not drawn on the map: Great Britain. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 283 in flower of 1,186 examined

Peak flowering in Apr. Each bar is the share of Dioscorea communis observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 283 of 1,186 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 19 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Dioscorea canariensis Webb & Berthel.
  • Smilax rubra Willd.
  • Tamus baccifera St.-Lag.
  • Tamus canariensis Willd. ex Kunth
  • Tamus cirrhosa Hausskn. ex Bornm.
  • Tamus communis L.
  • Tamus communis f. subtriloba (Guss.) O.Bolòs & Vigo
  • Tamus communis subsp. cretica (L.) Kit Tan
  • Tamus communis subsp. cretica (L.) Nyman
  • Tamus communis var. cretica (L.) Boiss.
  • Tamus communis var. smilacifolia (Jullien ex Boreau) Rouy
  • Tamus communis var. subtriloba Guss.
  • Tamus communis var. triloba Simonk.
  • Tamus cordifolia Stokes
  • Tamus cretica L.
  • Tamus edulis Lowe
  • Tamus norsa Lowe
  • Tamus parviflora Kunth
  • Tamus racemosa Gouan

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.