On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Potato cultivars appear in a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes. The potato is a starchy food, a tuber potato carrot stew the plant Solanum tuberosum and is a root vegetable native to the Americas.
Wild potato species can be found from the southern United States to southern Chile. Potatoes were introduced to Europe from the Americas by the Spanish in the second half of the 16th century. Today they are a staple food in many parts of the world and an integral part of much of the world’s food supply. Like the tomato, the potato is a nightshade in the genus Solanum, and the vegetative and fruiting parts of the potato contain the toxin solanine which is dangerous for human consumption. The name originally referred to the sweet potato although the two plants are not closely related.
It subsequently transferred over to a variety of digging tools. Around 1845, the name transferred to the tuber itself, the first record of this usage being in New Zealand English. English as “earth apple” or “ground apple”. They bear white, pink, red, blue, or purple flowers with yellow stamens.
After flowering, potato plants produce small green fruits that resemble green cherry tomatoes, each containing about 300 seeds. This trait is problematic for crop breeding, as all sexually-produced plants must be hybrids. The gene responsible for its trait as well as mutations to disable it are now known. Diploid hybrid potato breeding is a recent area of potato genetics supported by the finding that homozygous fixation of donor alleles is possible. There are about 5,000 potato varieties worldwide.
Three thousand of them are found in the Andes alone, mainly in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, and Colombia. They belong to eight or nine species, depending on the taxonomic school. Apart from the 5,000 cultivated varieties, there are about 200 wild species and subspecies, many of which can be cross-bred with cultivated varieties. The International Potato Center, based in Lima, Peru, holds 4,870 types of potato germplasm, most of which are traditional landrace cultivars. There are close to 4,000 varieties of potatoes, each of which has specific agricultural or culinary attributes. Around 80 varieties are commercially available in the UK.