Jan–MarApr–JunJul–SepOct–Dec
Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
← Explore Plants
Plant · P-023
Groundnut
Apios americana
American groundnut is a twining perennial legume grown for a string of tubers threaded along its rhizome like beads on a necklace. The tubers taste something like roasted sweet potato and carry roughly three times the protein of a potato, making it one of the few perennial root crops that works as a protein staple rather than a starch. It fixes its own nitrogen and shares some with neighbouring plants, but it needs a fence, shrub or trellis to climb and takes two to three years in the ground before the tubers size up. Any tuber left behind resprouts the following spring, so once established it is best treated as a permanent patch rather than a bed cleared and replanted each year.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun · Shade
- USDA zone
- USDA 4–9
- Soil
- Sand · Loam
- Moisture
- Wet · Moist · Well-Drained
Vertical layer
Vine- Soil pH
- 5–7.5
- Plant type
- Vine
- Mature height
- 8–15 ft
- Mature spread
- 2–5 ft
- Plant spacing
- Not yet recorded
- Root type
- Rhizome
- Spread pattern
- Root
Keep exploring
Similar plants
Discover more plants with shared forest layers or growing conditions.
Achocha
Cyclanthera pedata
Achocha is a fast climbing vine that gives three edible parts off one plant - young fruit eaten raw or cooked with a cucumber flavor, mature…
Vine · USDA 9–11
Amur Grape
Vitis amurensis
Amur Grape is a cold-hardy climbing vine, native to the woodlands of Russia, China, Korea and Japan, that survives temperatures down to about…
Vine · USDA 4–8
Arctic Kiwi
Actinidia kolomikta
Arctic Kiwi is the hardiest of the edible kiwi vines, a twining climber from cold parts of eastern Asia that survives dormant winters to…
Vine · USDA 4–8
Bitter Melon
Momordica charantia
Bitter melon is a fast-growing tropical vine grown for its young green fruit, cooked the way cucumber is used across the tropics. Left to…
Vine · USDA 9–11
Bottle Gourd
Lagenaria siceraria
Bottle gourd's real value here is not food but craft: the mature shell dries hard enough to become a bottle, bowl, dipper or birdhouse…
Vine · USDA 2–11
Boysenberry
Rubus ursinus x idaeus
Boysenberry is a hybrid bramble - Pacific dewberry crossed into the red raspberry line - grown for its large, soft, dark purple-red fruit,…
Vine · USDA 6–9
The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
- Locked ecological function
Behind the record
- Locked research reference
- Locked research reference
- Locked research reference