Potato
Scientific name: Solanum tuberosum L.
Diagnostic features
Sparsely pubescent herbaceous perennial with erect to decumbent stems to 1m.
Subterranean stems bearing large terminal tubers (the only overwintering part).
Leaves pinnate, with mixed large and small leaflets.
Flowers (20)25-35(40)mm across, few to many.
Corolla white to purple or mauve.
Fruit greenish to purplish, depressed-globose, 2-4cm across.
Chromosome number: (2n=48).
Habitat
Introduced-naturalized; much cultivated vegetable, casual and often persistent on tips, waste ground and in fields as a relic, rarely reproducing by seed.
Distribution
Scattered throughout British Isles; South America.
This species is keyed out on Page 3465 in the Text Key. |
