Apios americana
Apios americana, sometimes called the American groundnut, potato bean, hopniss, Indian potato, hodoimo, America-hodoimo, cinnamon vine, or groundnut (not to be confused with other plants in the subfamily Faboideae sometimes known by that name) is a perennial vine that bears edible beans and large edible tubers.[5] Triploids have been identified in Canada (in New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario) and the United States (in Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and Iowa).[5][6][7] The plant's natural range is from southern Canada (including Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick) down through Florida and west as far as the border of Colorado.However, recent evidence suggests that North American indigenous peoples likely intervened significantly as cultivators of the native plants of the region, in a manner similar to contemporary Western permaculture practices.[3][12][13] Early trials identified LA85-034 as a promising cultivar, with "elongate tubers of uniform, medium size with light brown skin and little extra rhizomatous material".[14] The largest germplasm collection of A. americana cultivars today is found at Iowa State University under the direction of Dr. Steven Cannon.[15][16] Despite these efforts at domestication, the American groundnut sadly remains largely uncultivated and underused in North America and Europe.[20][21] Another theory is that American groundnut may have been deliberately brought to Japan in the middle of the Meiji period as an ornamental flower.[20] Japanese websites that sell American groundnut continue to emphasize its health benefits in their marketing efforts.[10] In 1749, the travelling Swedish botanist Peter Kalm writes, "Hopniss or Hapniss was the Indian name of a wild plant, which they ate at that time...[10] The author Brinton wrote in 1885 in regards to the Lenape people, "Of wild fruits and plants they consumed the esculent and nutritious tubers on the roots of the Wild Bean, Apios tuberosa... which the Indians called hobbenis..."[10] In 1910, Parker writes that the Iroquois were consuming significant quantities of groundnuts up until about thirty years before his writing.[12] The groundnut was likely eaten at the harvest festival of November 1621 that is regarded as the first Thanksgiving, although only venison was specifically named as a food item at this meal by a Pilgrim eyewitness account.[3] A primary reason for this lack of assimilation was that the two-year cycle for an acceptable tuber yield did not match the cropping systems that were familiar to Europeans.[12] These tubers contain roughly three times the protein content of a potato (16.5% by dry weight), and the amino acid balance is good with the exception of cysteine and methionine.[31] A. americana tubers were found to have a protein concentration of 15–30 milligrams per gram (0.24–0.48 ounces per pound),[32] similar to that of other species in the genus, A. carnea and A. fortunei.Hypertensive rats that were fed powdered tubers as 5% of their total diet had a 10% decrease in blood pressure and also a reduction in cholesterol and triglycerides.[20] It has been shown that the tubers contain genistein and other isoflavones that have various health benefits, including an anti-carcinogenic function against colon, prostate, and breast cancer.[37] The flower was shown to have an inhibitory activity on maltose and an anti-hyperglycemic effect in mice, suggesting that not only is it a viable and novel food source for the general population, but also in the prevention of diabetes.