Price's potato-bean facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Price's potato-bean |
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| Conservation status | |
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Apios
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A. priceana
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| Apios priceana B.L.Rob.
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The Apios priceana is a special kind of flowering plant that is quite rare. People often call it Price's potato-bean or Price's groundnut. It belongs to the legume family, which includes plants like peas and beans. This plant grows as a climbing yellow-green vine. It gets its name "potato-bean" because it grows from a thick, potato-like part underground called a tuber.
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About Price's Potato-Bean
This unique plant is found in only a few places in the United States. It grows naturally in Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Tennessee. It used to grow in Illinois, but sadly, all the plants there are now gone. Today, there are only about 25 known groups of these plants left. Because it's so rare, the U.S. government has listed it as a threatened species. This means it's protected by law to help it survive.
What Price's Potato-Bean Looks Like
The vines of the Price's potato-bean can grow quite long, reaching up to 3 to 5 meters (about 10 to 16 feet). In the summer, the plant produces beautiful, fragrant flowers. These flowers look a bit like peas and can be pale pink or greenish-yellow.
The plant's flowers are pollinated by bees and a type of butterfly called the long-tailed skipper (Urbanus proteus). Each leaf on the vine is about 20 to 30 centimeters (8 to 12 inches) long. Each leaf has seven smaller leaflets. The leaves grow in an alternating pattern along the stem.
A key feature that helps tell this plant apart from other Apios species is its large tuber that grows underground. Long ago, Native Americans and early settlers likely used these tubers as a source of food. After the flowers, the plant produces a long, thin pod that is about 10 to 15 centimeters (4 to 6 inches) long.
Where Price's Potato-Bean Lives
The Price's potato-bean usually grows in specific places. It likes areas where the forest canopy (the top layer of tree branches) has openings. You can often find it in mixed hardwood forests, especially where the slopes of ravines meet the bottoms of creeks or streams.
Why Price's Potato-Bean Is Threatened
The main reason Price's potato-bean is a threatened species is because its habitat is being destroyed. This means the places where it naturally grows are being changed or removed. Other things also hurt the plant, like diseases, animals eating the plants (predation), and people historically digging up its tubers. All these factors have made this plant very rare.
