Also know as American Groundnut or hopniss, Apios americana is wild in North America with relatives in Asia. Found in temperate forests, wetlands, prairies  this plant is happy in most places near bodies of water in intermittent to full sunlight in a variety of soils.

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The plant is a vine that often spreads from ten to twenty feet in a season. As with most legumes, Apios americana is great at nitrogen fixing. The stolon often has a "mother tuber" that overwinters and allows the plant to regrow in the spring. 

 

The tubers are edible and are often used by local foragers similarly to potatoes by boiling, frying, or dried and ground into flour. Apparently, the tuber tastes like a "nuttier" potato or a mix between a peanut and a potato.The tuber is protein rich (13-17%) and full of carbohydrates. Many Native American tribes would store the tubers, dry or parboil them, or tribes like the Menomini made preserves with tubers and maple syrup/sugar. Besides the tuber, flowers and shoots are edible and the seeds can be cooked and eaten.

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The plant exists in both diploid and triploid populations. The diploid  populations reproduce either via seed or stolon growth/tuber division while triploid only reproduce asexually through stolon growth.

 

Reference: Kalberer, Scott; Vikas Belamkar, Jugpreet Singh, Steven Cannon. Apios americana: natural history and ethnobotany

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