Dioscorea Mexicana

Dioscorea mexicana — Mexican Tortoise Plant

Mexico looked at a tortoise and said, “We can grow that.”

And somehow, they did.

Dioscorea mexicana grows a chunky, woody caudex that slowly cracks into tortoise-shell-like plates, then shoots out long climbing vines covered in heart-shaped leaves.

Part potato. Part tortoise. Somehow still a vine.

Botany was unsupervised.

About Dioscorea mexicana:
Also known as the Mexican Tortoise Plant, Dioscorea mexicana is a rare caudiciform vine native to Mexico and Central America. It is prized by caudex collectors for its large, sculptural, fissured caudex and vigorous climbing growth. Often compared with Dioscorea elephantipes, mexicana develops its own distinctive broad, plated caudex as it matures.