Potato
Potato
Food Plant
A staple food crop grown for its energy-rich underground tubers — swollen stems that store starch and can grow into whole new plants.
💡 Fun Facts
- The part we eat is the tuber — a swollen underground stem, not a root — packed with energy as starch.
- After its flowers, it can make small green berries like tiny tomatoes, but these are poisonous.
- Only the tuber is safe to eat: the leaves, stems and any green potatoes contain a natural poison.
📅 Through the Year
- Flowering:June to August
- Fruiting:August to October
Name Story
Solanum tuberosum
means “the lumpy nightshade”
likely meaningThe word for ‘lumpy, full of tubers’ is certain, but the family name Solanum has a disputed origin that scholars haven’t settled — so part of the name stays a little uncertain.
What does its name mean?
- Solanum — nightshade (the plant family’s old name)Latin — the old name for the nightshades; its origin is unknown
- tuberosum — full of tubers or swellingsLatin tuber ‘lump, swelling’
‘Full of lumps’ says it all — the potato is grown entirely for its tubers, the swollen underground stems we dig up and eat. The first word is the old Latin name for the nightshade family (the potato is a cousin of the tomato and aubergine), though nobody is quite sure where that word first came from.