Earth and Space News: Hoi Hawaiian Bitter Yams Are Symbols for Magnum's Desperate Measures

Summary: Hoi Hawaiian bitter yams, as tough, toxic, triumphant famine foods, perhaps allegorize the last resorts in Magnum PI's Desperate Measures Jan. 3, 2020.

Hoi Hawaiian bitter yams, perhaps allegorical for Magnum PI police drama television series episode Desperate Measures Jan. 3, 2020, are famine foods whose toxicity abates after three-day peeling, boiling and lime-water steeping.

Second-season 12th-episode director Maja Vrvillo and writers Eric Guggenheim and Peter Lenkov broach intelligence break-ins as Hawaii-bad as famines besieging all but hoi Hawaiian bitter yams. Germinated seeds and sprouted bulbils (from Greek βολβός, swollen rhizome") and tubers create hoi Hawaiian bitter yams, classified by Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778). The scientifically designated Dioscorea bulbifera (from Greek Dioscorides, 40-90 C.E.; Latin bulbus, "bulb" and -fer ("-bearing") delivers fruit-encapsulated, winged 0.47 to 0.79-inch (12 to 20-millimeter) seeds.

Hoi Hawaiian bitter yams embrace three-winged 0.71 to 1.1-inch (1.8 to 2.8-centimeter) by 0.39 to 0.59-inch (1 to 1.5-centimeter) fruits August through October, after summer-pollinated flowers.

Pink-purple-white 0.06-inch (1.4-millimeter) perianths (Greek περί, "around" and άνθος, "flower") and 0.08-inch (2-millimeter) hypanthiums (Greek ὑπό, "under") fasten 2.36 to 15.75-inch (6 to 40-centimeter) pistillate flowers.

Fragrant 2.76 to 4-inch (7 to 10.16-centimeter-) long staminate flowers get green-tinged, petaled, sepaled, 0.05-inch (1.2-millimeter) perianths with six fertile stamens of same-length anthers and filaments. Unlike 1.58 to 5.91-inch (4 to 15-centimeter) by 0.04 to 0.16-inch (1 to 4-millimeter) winged leaf stalks, pistillate and staminate inflorescences ("flower clusters") have no stalks. Alternate, entire-margin, heart-shaped, simple, smooth-surfaced 1.97 to 9.84-inch (5 to 25-centimeter-) long, 1.97 to 10.24-inch (5 to 26-centimeter-) wide leaves include five to 11 parallel veins.

Hoi Hawaiian bitter yams juggle in leaf axil junctions with stems black-brown, brown-red, fall-dropping, pale-fleshed, spring-sprouting 1.1-pound (0.5-kilogram), 1.97 to 2.36-inch (5 to 6-centimeter) diameter bulbils.

Hoi Hawaiian bitter yams, albeit evergreen perennial climbers, keep annual, cylindrical, counterclockwise-twining, fall-dying, spring-growing, purple-flecked 32.81 to 328.08-foot (10 to 100-meter-) tall, 1.64-foot (0.5-meter-) wide stems.

Hoi Hawaiian bitter yams log alkaloid-lodging, bitter-tasting, black-brown, brown-red, root-stalked, spring-sprouting, subsurface, 1.97 to 3.15-inch (5 to 8-centimeter) diameter, 1.1 to 3.31-pound (0.5 to 1.5-kilogram) tubers. They manage mean annual 47.24 to 102.36-inch (1,200 to 2,600-millimeter) rainfall; temperatures between 68 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit (20 and 30 degrees Celsius); and three-month droughts. They need deep, non-coastal, non-piney, sandy-loam, well-drained soil pHs 6 to 6.7 at hard-wooded, open-forested, thicketed 16.4 to 2,198.16-foot (5 to 670-meter) altitudes above sea level.

Hoi Hawaiian bitter yams and non-bitter, non-poisonous five-leafed (pi'a locally, Dioscorea pentaphylla scientifically) and winged (uhi, D. alata) yams originated among ancient Hawaii's Polynesian canoe plants.

Hoi Hawaiian bitter yams proffered ancient, and provide traditional, Hawaiians famine food along with native 'ama'u fern (ama'uma'u, Sadleria) and Arnott's twin-sorus fern (hō'i'o, Diplazium arnottii).

Hoi Hawaiian bitter yams queue up with famine-fighting, native beach heliotrope (kīpūkai, Heliotropium curassavicum), glossy nightshade (popolo, Solanum nigrum) and Hawai'i potato fern (pala, Marattia douglasii). They, native Hawaiian hawthorn rose ('ūlei, Osteomeles anthyllidifolia) and ivy-leaved morning glory (koali, Ipomoea tuberculata) and Indian mulberry (noni, Morinda citrifolia) canoe plants rally starving Hawaiians. They survive as ancient, traditional Hawaiian famine food along with native lacy maiden fern (kikawaiō, Dryopteris cyatheoides), screwpine (hala, Pandanus tectorius) and tree ferns (hāpu'u, Cibotium).

Hoi Hawaiian bitter yams transmit toughness throughout troubled terrains and times, toxicity without timely treatments, triumph as famine foods talismanically tantamount to Magnum PI's Desperate Measures.

(left to right) Hawaii Five-0's Sergeant Quinn Liu (Katrina Law) and Officer Tani Rey (Meaghan Rath) work with Magnum P.I.'s Juliet Higgins (Perdita Weeks), Orville "Rick" Wright (Zachary Knighton) and Thomas Sullivan Magnum (Jay Hernandez) in CBS-TV's Magnum P.I. season 2 episode 12, Desperate Measures: Magnum P.I. @MagnumPICBS, via Facebook Jan. 4, 2020

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

hoi Hawaiian bitter yam (Dioscorea bulbifera) fruit and leaves; Nahiku, Eastern Maui, Hawai'i; Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 11:44:27: Forest and Kim Starr (Starr Environmental), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/starr-environmental/24966795025/; Forest & Kim Starr, CC BY 4.0 International, via Starr Environmental @ http://www.starrenvironmental.com/images/image/?q=24966795025

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Earth and Space News

Sunday, January 5, 2020

Hoi Hawaiian Bitter Yams Are Symbols for Magnum's Desperate Measures

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