American Potatobean (Apios americana)
- Family: Pea (Fabaceae)
- Flowering: June-September.
- Field Marks: This viny member of the pea family has 5 or 7 leaflets and maroon or brown-purple flowers.
- Habitat: Along streams, wet meadows, wet woods, around ponds and lakes, in sloughs.
- Habit: Perennial, herbaceous, twining vine with fleshy tubers.
- Stems: Twining, smooth or with short hairs, up to 10 feet long.
- Leaves: Alternate, pinnately divided into 5 or 7 leaflets, each leaflet lanceolate to ovate, pointed at the tip, rounded or tapering to the base, without teeth, smooth or with short hairs, up to 3 inches long.
- Flowers: Several in short racemes in the axils of the leaves, maroon or brown-purple, up to 2/3 inch long.
- Sepals: 5, united below, green, smooth or hairy.
- Petals: 5, the parts arranged like those in a sweet pea, maroon or brown-purple, up to 2/3 inch long.
- Stamens: 10.
- Pistils: Ovary superior.
- Fruits: Pods linear, up to 5 inches long, up to 1/3 inch broad.
- Notes: This species is also known as groundnut. The tubers are edible by humans.
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