Potato

The potato (plural form: potatoes) (Solanum tuberosum) is a perennial plant of the Solanaceae, or nightshade, family, grown for its starchy tuber. Potatoes are the world's most important tuber crop and fourth most important source of food energy (after rice, wheat, and maize): farmers and gardeners grow them world-wide. Growers cultivate thousands of different varieties of potato. The potato originated in the Andes, in the area of present-day Peru. Pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Andean cultures cultivated around 200 different kinds of potatoes.

References and external links

• Potato Recipe Collection
• Reference for potato history: The Vegetable Ingredients Cookbook by Christine Ingram, Lorenz Books, 1996 ISBN 1859672647
• The History and Social Influence of the Potato by Redcliffe N. Salaman ISBN 0521316235
• Potato nutrition facts
• Hamilton, Andy & Dave, (2004), Potatoes - Solanum tuberosums retrieved on 4 May 2005
• BBC: DNA shows all modern potatoes can trace roots back to Peru
• Spooner, D.M. et al. 2005. A single domestication for potato based on multilocus amplified fragment length polymorphism genotyping. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Published online before print October 3, 2005