Porang

Porang or Suweg in Javanese known is Elephant foot yam or stink lily in English. The tree grows in wild from tropical forest. It is Southeast Asian native plants. In Indonesia, Elephant foot yam grows in the wild, fields sometimes on the edge of the river.

This plant is easy to grow and can survive by storing food in the corm. The flowers appear, when storage in deep powder is sufficient for flowering, before the flowering, the leaves including stalks will wither. These plants have flowers, when bloom will produce the alluring smell to carrion flies for pollination.

To propagate this plant can be done by using the seeds and corm. The stem produces edible tubers, It can be consumed after it is washed well and boiled in tamarind water or butter milk.

The corm contains an active diastatic enzyme amylase, lupeol, stigmasterol, Betulinic acid, tricontane, betasitosterol and its palmitate and galactose, rhamnose, xylose and glucose. The benefit Elephant foot yam for medicinal herb for treat disease such as: Bronchitis, Asthma, Abdominal pain, Dysentery, Enlargement of spleen, Piles, Elephantiasis, diseases due to vitiated blood, Rheumatic swellings.

The Scientific classification of Elephant foot yam
Kingdom: Plantae
: Angiosperms
: Monocots
Order: Alismatales
Family: Araceae
Subfamily: Aroideae
Tribe: Thomsonieae
Genus: Amorphophallus
Species: A. paeoniifolius
Binomial name: Amorphophallus paeoniifolius (Dennst.) Nicolson