Common Names:  Rosary Root. Indian Potato.  Ground Nut.  Earth Nut.  Groundnut.  Wild Potato.  Wild Sweet Potato.  American Potato Bean.  Ground Bean.  Hopniss.  Dakota Peas.  Sea Vines.  Pea Vines.  Pomme de Terre.  Patates en Chapelet. 

Use:  Edible:  Root; Seed; Seedpod.

Tuber - raw or cooked. A delicious flavor somewhat like roasted sweet potatoes.  The tuber can also be dried and ground into a powder then used as a thickening agent for soups or gravies and can be added to cereal flours when making bread. Tubers contain 17% crude protein, this is more than 3 times that found in potatoes. The tubers can be harvested in their first year but they take 2 - 3 years to become a sizeable crop. They can be harvested at any time of the year but are at their best in the autumn. The tubers can also be harvested in the autumn and will store until at least the spring. Yields of 2.3 kilos of tubers per plant have been achieved.

Seed - cooked. Rather small and not produced very freely, they are used like peas and beans. A good source of protein, they can be ground into a powder and added to cereals when making bread, etc.

Native American Use:

Wild Bean was a source of food among the Omaha, Dakota, Santee Sioux, Cheyenne, Osage, Pawnee, and Hidatsa. It has been excavated from four Ozark bluff-dweller sites in Arkansas.  The Ozark peoples are regarded as pre-Columbian.  Wild Bean “roots” were dug in the winter.  The tubers were gathered all year but were best when harvested from late fall through early spring.  They were eaten raw, cooked, or dried and ground for flour.  Some of the “roots” were boiled, peeled, and dried for storage.  The seeds are cooked and eaten like peas in summer.  Wild Bean was also an important food of New England colonists.  Once the colonists discovered the wild bean from the native peoples, they had the nerve to enact a town law to prevent Indians from digging wild bean on English land.  

Cherokee -Uncooked seeds substituted for pinto beans in bean bread. Beans used for food.  Roots cooked like potatoes.

Chippewa -Tubers eaten. Dakota -Roasted or boiled tubers used for food. Delaware - Roots dried, ground into flour and made into bread and cakes.  Roots boiled and eaten as the cultivated potato.  Tuberous roots used as winter food. Huron - Roots used with acorns during famine. Iroquois - Tubers eaten. Menominee - Roots cooked with maple sugar and superior to candied yams.  Peeled, parboiled, sliced roots dried for winter use. Meskwaki - Root stocks eaten raw and peeled, parboiled, sliced and dried for winter use. Mohegan - Dried roots ground into a flour and used for thickening stews.  Fresh or dried roots cooked and used for food. Omaha - Thickened root boiled until the skin came off and used for food.  Roasted or boiled tubers used for food.  Nuts boiled, peeled and eaten as a vegetable.   Pawnee - Roasted or boiled tubers used for food. Map: Indian Territory: 1885-1887 Ponca - Roasted or boiled tubers used for food. Potawatomi - Wild potato was appreciated. Seminole - Plant used for food. Winnebago - Roasted or boiled tubers used for food.