Potatoes - their relatives

Tomatoes are relatives of the potato. It is possible to graft a tomato stem onto a potato shoot. You get a plant which produces edible potatoes and tomatoes. They are both members of the family 'solanum'.

Here are a few solanum flowers.


Potato: variety is Wilja. (Click on the image for a more detailed picture)




Solanum climber: a climbing plant, about 12 ft. high, in my neighbour's garden. The flowers are almost identical to 'Wilja', and there are thousands of them. It's known as the Chilean potato tree, and the botanical name is Solanum crispum 'Glasnevin'.




Kangaroo Apple. There are some of these in the Ventnor botanical gardens on the Isle of Wight. I was given a fruit, and planted the seeds. Here are some pictures of a plant in bloom.There's a strong resemblance to a potato flower.

The fruit are egg-shaped, about the size of large acorns; bitter but said to be edible when they turn from green to bright orange and finally red. They seemed more ornamental than edible to me; I only ever ate one. They are like a very acrid, unpleasant tomato.


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Something found on the compost heap last year... the blooms looked like miniature potato flowers. There were even tiny 'potato apples'. I assume this is some sort of 'solanum'. I looked carefully at the roots to see if there were tubers, but there were none.

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Aubergine plants which my wife grew last year: compare with the 'Wilja' flowers above.

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Woody Nightshade flowers are also very similar to those of the potato, but smaller:

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The plant below left is one I saw at the Heritage Plant Sale at the Botanical Garden, Leicester, in late summer 2012. Apparently it is from Madagascar, has no common name, but is clearly a member of the solanum family. It has very long spikes like a cactus. The one on the right is similar but a yellow-flowered variant.

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I will be adding items to this page if I notice any more potato relatives. For now, here is one more; I don't have any pictures of the flowers, unfortunately, but this is a "Pepino" fruit. In the UK it will only grow in a glasshouse.

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The fruit before cutting has a faint aroma similar to a melon, with a hint of brassica.

The flesh has a similar flavour, smell and texture to a melon, with a slightly astringent aftertaste. The flesh colour is pale pink, like many small melons. The flower is extremely similar to that of a potato - purple petals with yellow centre.

UPDATE...picture supplied by Cathy Händel, Thun, Switzerland.....

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Nigel Deacon / Diversity website

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