The egg-shaped tubers of the native potato appear very similar to the unrelated true potato, though they are smaller than modern commercial varieties. They are typically boiled, but may also be roasted, baked, or fried. Their flavor is bland, but sweeter than P. esculentus.
Native potato is overwhelmingly a subsistence crop, though flour milling is reported in Burkina Faso.
rotundifolius is one of three Plectranthus species native to Africa grown for their edible tubers and using the same vernacular names. The others, P. esculentus and P. edulis, native to southern Africa and Ethiopia, respectively, have not spread beyond Africa. Its cultivation has been largely displaced by the spread of cassava, which was introduced by the Portuguese to Africa from South America about 500 years ago.