Yacon, or Bear’s Foot, Aug. 23

by tulla Lightfoot

Yacón or Bear’s Foot?

     The Smallanthus sonchifolius plant is a perennial relative of the Daisies and the Sunflowers, native to northern and central Andes from Columbia to Northern Argentina, and I have no idea why it might be surrounding my little Greenway path in North Carolina. I continue to think that my plant identification app is confusing it with something more appropriate for my area such as Heliathus tuverosus – Jerusalem artichoke, or Verbesina encelioides – Golden Crownbeard.  But the leaves of both of these plants are too small, and the petals just don’t look right.   Additionally, the plant is mostly leaves and only sparsely dotted with flowers unlike these other two. At first I tried to believe that these plants really were Yacón and I got very excited. The plants have been flowering for months, but I have been avoiding writing about them because they seemed so unremarkable.  But if they truly are Yacón then how they got here is very mysterious. Who planted them on the trail, and why?

      The sweet tasting Yacón tubers and leaves are very nutritious with a crisp pleasant texture, so they might have been planted intentionally by some industrious and health conscious former landowner.  Or perhaps in the distant past Inca messengers, called chasquis or chaskis, visited North Carolina and dropped some of the roots or rhizomes of the plant along their way. These then took hold, sprouted up and just kept growing on the path.  These Inca messengers were highly trained and physically fit enough to travel long distances, up to 240 km a day, carrying quipus to various locations.  Quipus were recorded messages of the Incas made of colored and knotted strings of cotton or other fibers. These quipus might consist of only a few strands, or up to thousands of strands of fiber, with each knot and color of strand standing for a number or concept that could be decoded by the chasqui.  Chasquis often took Yacón root with them because the plant is 75% water, along with 20% carbohydrates, 2% protein, 1% fat and 2% ash.  The water content was important for traveling long distances over tough terrain and the plant is supposedly tasty.  Some describe the taste of raw Yacón root as resembling apple, watermelon and celery combined.  Others describe it tasting like violets, or a cross between apples and jicamas, or apples and celery.  The leaves of the plant are also useful for cooking.  Similar to wrapping food in cabbage for German cuisine, or wrapping things in grape leaves for Greek cuisine.  But while the Inca road system, or the Qhapaq Ñan, was at least 40,000 km or 25,000 miles long there is no evidence that it stretched as far as North Carolina.

     Although Yacón has been cultivated in South America for centuries, where it is the traditional food for many cultures, it was ignored by the early Spanish invaders because it was not a high energy food. Because of this, it was never brought to Europe and never cultivated there and so never cultivated here in North America by European settlers. Some interest in the plant emerged in the 1930s when Italian botanists began breeding new varieties of vegetable and plants, such as Dahlias, by grafting  them onto Yacón roots. But this research ended during World War II and never was revived.  Yacón has only expanded into other regions in the past few decades.  New Zealanders started cultivating the plant in the 1970s, Japanese, Brazilians and Czech started cultivating it in the 1980s.  It was identified as an important diet food by the US National Research Council’s Advisory committee on Technology Innovation in 1989, and recognized for being beneficial for people needing to lose weight and for people with diabetes, but it is only now reaching some markets in the United States.  The plant’s tubers and leaves have high levels of inulin, a form of sugar that humans can’t break down, making it low calorie. Along with the inulin, a good 70% or 80% of the carbs in the tubers are Fructooligosaccharides which have a low glycemic index and don’t cause spikes in blood sugar.  The tuber is hypoglycemic and is thought to decrease insulin resistance and serum insulin.  To get these benefits, diabetics can also use Yacón syrup as a natural sweetener.  Fermentation of frutooligosaccharides reduces the pH levels in human large intestines, which help people absorb minerals like magnesium, phosphorus and more importantly, calcium.   Both fruttoligosaccharides and inulin are prebiotics.  Fructans aren’t digested in the small intestines but travel to the large intestines where they can improve gut microflora by acting as a food source for good bacteria like Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus.  So, ingesting either the tuber, or the syrup can improve one’s gut microbiome and calcium absorption. Better calcium absorption will improve bone density.  Inulin adds bulk to your stools and increases the frequency of bowel movements while slowing down overall digestion so it’s an aid for constipation.  Slower digestion helps one better absorb nutrients from your food, but because of the extra fiber, if you eat too much Yacón you can feel bloating and nauseous or might even have diarrhea.

      I continued to be so skeptical about the identity of this plant that my daughter suggested I post a photo of it on a Facebook group dedicated to NC native plants, and Lisa Tompkins suggested that instead of Smallanthus sonchifolius, it was really Smallanthus uvedalia, a plant indigenous to North Carolina with the common name of Bear’s Foot.  Other names for the plant are Hairy Leafcup, Bearfoot Root, and Yellow Flower Leafcup.  This makes so much more sense.  Both plants are in the Asteraceae family and in the Smallanthus genus so they are closely related. While there at least two dozen species of Smallanthus in the world, the Bear’s Foot is the only Smallanthus naturally growing in the United States.  Once identifies as Polymnia uvedalia, the plant was probably reclassified in 1998 when botanists from the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew decided to classify plants by their DNA rather than their physical appearance. Reclassification continues to this day.

    Sadly, Bear’s Foot is not edible. Its largest benefit to humans is its use as a hair tonic.  A salve applied externally to the scalp stimulates hair growth and is an ingredient of many hair lotions and ointments.  Native peoples also use the root as a laxative, and stimulant. Poultices made from the bruised root of the Bear’s Foot plant were used as a dressing on burns, also used for inflammation and cuts.  The root was also thought to have beneficial effects on our stomachs and spleens and may be taken to relieve indigestion.  It is also was used to aide liver function. 

     Bear’s Foot is a herbaceous perennial plant, native to eastern and central states in the U.S.  It grows in open woodlands, on the edges of woodlands, in meadows and along streams.  It gets its name from the shape of its large leaves that can grow to be 10 to 12 inches in diameter and have 3 to 5 lobes.  This plant can grow in many different well-drained soils and needs 6 hours or more of sun. It can also tolerate partial shade. The width of the plant is 2 to 3 feet, and it can reach 3 to 8 feet tall.  The flowers emerge on the ends of the stems and look like daisies or miniature sunflowers.  The composite blooms are 2 to 3 inches in diameter with 7 to 13 ray flowers surround several more disk flowers.  Only the ray flowers produce seeds.  The name “Smallanthus” was created to honor American botanist John Kunkel Small who lived from 1869 to 1938. 

    Bear’s Foot produces a lot of flowers that attract several pollinators such as; bees, wasps and flies.  It is a hermaphrodite species and needs to be pollinated by insects.  The fruit produced by the ray flowers is brown to copper colored, sometimes described as red or burgundy.  The plant has a small, one seeded fruit that doesn’t open and is less than an inch in length.  This fruit is eaten by birds who then spread the seeds in their waste.  The stems of the plant sometimes branch, growing out of the axil of the leaves. The stems are hollow and can bend with strong winds, but should not be removed or cut back.  Interestingly, about 30% of New England native bees are twig-nesting bees which build nests and lay offspring in dead plant stems leaving a nutritious ball of pollen and nectar that the larvae or adults use to hibernate over the winter. Bees emerge from the stems the next growing season.  Sadly, Bear’s Foot plants are endangered in some states like New York and New Jersey.  They are a threatened species in Michigan where the plant has legal protection.

    I am still confused about what plant is growing on the Greenway trail.  While Bear’s Foot is a more likely candidate than Yacón, and number of the stems were now lying flat on the path toppled over by the winds of recent storms, the leaves of the plants are not hairy.  Search as I could, I am not seeing any hairs on the leaves.  And it would be so much cooler to have an exotic and very beneficial South American plant growing practically in my own back yard. But when I looked at the photographs on the Real Seeds website, I can see that the leaves of my Greenway plants are no wheres near as gigantic as the ones modeled by Catherine. Still, I love the idea of Inca messengers running around my area, dropping some of their supplies that take hold and grow. I suppose the only way I can be 100% certain is to wait a while and then dig around the roots to see if I can find any tubers to slice and eat.  My interest piqued by this research, I travelled to a dozen grocery stores town looking to see if anyone was selling Yacón tubers figuring that if they were growing on the trail they might be farmed locally. But that was not the case. There was no Yacón anywhere to be found. I did order Yacón syrup on Amazon and was excited to try it.  The first thing I did was pour some in my morning coffee. Unfortunately, I discovered that the syrup tastes like a cross between molasses and rotten bananas! Not a great taste first think in the morning. However, it did wonders for any elimination problems I had. The sweet syrup worked better in the oatmeal and hemp seed cookies that I made, but I doubt that eating 6 of them will help me lose any weight. 

    Still I am determined to dig around the roots of the plants looking for tubers to definitively identify them. I know that some people will be horrified seeing me out on the Greenway with a shovel disturbing what looks like a natural environment. And I feel bad wanting to identify the plants this way, but if these plants get any bigger they’ll be candidates for destruction by the mowing crew and herbicide treatments. Other hikers might be angry seeing me dig, so I decided to wear a brown shirt and cap and try to look like someone who belongs there rather than a curious hiker trying to identify an herb. 

If you want to learn more about both these plants, see the links below.  The CDC says that one in ten Americans have diabetes, over 70 million adults in the US are obese, and 99 million are overweight. If Yacón is as helpful as reported in my references for the condition and the disease, we should be growing it and using it. Replacing high fructose corn syrup with Yacón syrup could be an important first step in battling this disease.

Michael McCarthy, Independent, “Scientists reclassify all plants”, November 1998, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/scientists-reclassify-all-plants-1186749.html

Tufts Pollinator Initiative, 2021, “The right way to leave stems for native bees”, https://sites.tufts.edu/pollinators/2021/04/the-right-way-to-leave-stems-for-native-bees/

Center for Disease Control and Prevention, “The Facts, Stats and Impacts of Diabetes”, https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/library/spotlights/diabetes-facts-stats.html#:~:text=Key%20findings%20include%3A,t%20know%20they%20have%20it.

William Woys Weaver, Mother Earth News, “Yummy Yacon Root”, https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/yacon-root-zmaz06jjzraw/

South China Morning  Post, “Yacon, wonder tuber from the Andes – almost no calories and does wonders for your health”, https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/3005237/how-wonder-tuber-yacon-andes-took-root-himalayas

Dan Brennan, reviewer, Nourish by WebMD, “Yacon Root Syrup: Are there Health Benefits?” , https://www.webmd.com/diet/health-benefits-yacon-root#1

Eat the Weeds: and other things too., “Yacon”, https://www.eattheweeds.com/yacon/

Tyrant Farms, “How to Propagate and Grow Peruvian Ground Apple, AKA Yakon” 2019,https://www.tyrantfarms.com/how-to-propagate-and-grow-peruvian-ground-apple-aka-yakon/

Kris Bordessa, Attainable Sustainable, “Growing Yacon Root:  Plant it and Forget it Until Harvest Time”, April 2020, https://www.attainable-sustainable.net/growing-yacon/

North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox, “Smallanthus uvedalia” https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/smallanthus-uvedalia/

Garden Experiments, “Bear’s Foot or Hairy Leafcup” https://www.gardenexperiments.com/bears-foot-or-hairy-leafcup/

Wildflowrs of the United States, “Hairy Leafcup, Bear’s Foot, Yellow Leafcup, Uveldalia, Smallanthus uvedalius” https://uswildflowers.com/detail.php?SName=Smallanthus%20uvedalius

Plants for a Future, “Smallanthus uvedalia – L.”  https://pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Smallanthus+uvedalia#:~:text=Medicinal%20Uses&text=It%20is%20perhaps%20best%20known,stimulant%5B4%2C%2061%5D.

Real Seeds, “Rare and Unusual Tubers: Yacon, Oca, Cinnamon Vine and Comfrey” https://www.realseeds.co.uk/unusualtubers.html