Apios americana (American ground nut)

Potato bean or common groundnut is a native perennial vine in the legume family that produces edible beans and large edible tubers. The tubers were traditionally a food for indigenous peoples of America, but today Japan is the only place where it is commercially farmed in any quantity. The plant is sometimes grown for the attractiveness of its maroon or reddish brown pea-like flowers, which appear in compact racemes. Just know that this plant can take over and become weedy. It can grow to 8–16' long. Prefers shade and moist or wet soils. A pretty plant for an edible garden, a walled garden, or a native garden if you have a spot where its exuberance will not be a vexation.

Common groundnut is a native perennial vine that is found in marshes, wet thickets, stream banks and bottomland forests. In many areas where it would be found naturally, it has been pushed out by invasive plants. It is a larval host for the silver-spotted skipper. 

Photo by Leslie Cario