For the musical instrument sometimes called a “sweet potato”, see Ocarina. Sweet potato is native to the tropical regions of the Americas. Of the approximately 50 genera and more than 1,000 species of Convolvulaceae, I. Baked sweet potato plant is a herbaceous perennial vine, bearing alternate triangle-shaped or palmately lobed leaves and medium-sized sympetalous flowers.

The hermaphrodite, five-fold and short-stalked flowers are single or few in stalked, zymous inflorescences that arise from the leaf axils and stand upright. Some varieties rarely or never produce flowers. 10 to 15 mm long, usually finely haired or ciliate. The flowers open before sunrise and stay open for a few hours. They close again in the morning and begin to wither. The edible tuberous root is long and tapered, with a smooth skin whose color ranges between yellow, orange, red, brown, purple, and beige. Its flesh ranges from beige through white, red, pink, violet, yellow, orange, and purple.

Although the sweet potato is not closely related botanically to the common potato, they have a shared etymology. The first Europeans to taste sweet potatoes were members of Christopher Columbus’s expedition in 1492. Hebrew, this is not a direct loan of the Taino word. Some organizations and researchers advocate for the styling of the name as one word—”sweetpotato”—instead of two, to emphasize the plant’s genetic uniqueness from both common potatoes and yams and to avoid confusion of it being classified as a type of common potato.