Morphological Characteristics and Crystalline Structures of Granules of Some Wild Yam Species (Dioscorea) from Cote D`ivoire Forest Zone

Starches extracted from tubers of (07) species of wild yam (Dioscorea) have been studied with regard to the morphology and to the crystalline structure of their granules. The results revealed shapes and variable starch granule sizes and characteritics for every starch. These starches are constitued of granules with triangular, ovo triangular, ellipsoidal and polyhedric shape. Globaly the distribution of the granule size varies from 0.8 to 90 m. It is for starch granules of every uniform and asymmetric specie. The starch of D. dumetorum that has some small granules ( = 3 m) has a crystalline structure of A type and the other studied starches that have some thick granules ( = 25 m) have a crystalline structure of B type.