Night-Fragrant Flower

APPEARANCE: Each piece is an inflorescence, or cluster of flower buds, about 2 inches long, more or less green. Usually several of the buds will have bloomed into bright yellow five-petalled flowers, further confirming the identification.

QUALITY: Select those with more buds and fewer flowers.

COMMENTS: The plant that produces this rather precious vegetable is a woody climber of the butterfly weed or milkweed family. A native of China and India, it is cultivated in Europe as an ornamental and in the Asian tropics and subtropics as a source of food: flowers and leaves are eaten as a vegetable, while a sweetmeat is made from the fleshy roots.