Editing Potato (section)

== Description ==

[[File:CIP-Afiche-papa-ingles.jpg|thumb|Morphology of the potato plant; tubers are forming from stolons.]]

Potato plants are [[Herbaceous plant|herbaceous]] [[perennial]]s that grow up to {{Convert|1|m|ft}} high. The stems are hairy. The leaves have roughly four pairs of [[Leaflet (botany)|leaflets]]. The flowers range from white or pink to blue or purple; they are yellow at the centre, and are insect-pollinated.<ref name="Kew">{{cite web |title=Solanum tuberosum: Potato |url=https://www.kew.org/plants/potato |publisher=Royal Botanic Gardens Kew |access-date=5 May 2024}}</ref>

The plant develops [[tuber]]s to store nutrients. These are not roots but stems that form from thickened [[rhizomes]] at the tips of long thin [[stolon]]s. On the surface of the tubers there are "eyes," which act as sinks to protect the vegetative buds from which the stems originate. The "eyes" are arranged in helical form. In addition, the tubers have small holes that allow breathing, called [[lenticel]]s. The lenticels are circular and their number varies depending on the size of the tuber and environmental conditions.<ref name="Ewing Struik 1992">{{Cite book |title=Horticultural Reviews |last1=Ewing |first1=E. E. |last2=Struik |first2=P. C. |editor-last=Janick |editor-first=Jules |chapter=Tuber Formation in Potato: Induction, Initiation, and Growth |year=1992 |pages=89–198 |doi=10.1002/9780470650523.ch3 |isbn=978-0-471-57339-5 }}</ref> Tubers form in response to decreasing day length, although this tendency has been minimized in commercial varieties.<ref>{{cite journal |first1=Virginia |last1=Amador |first2=Jordi |last2=Bou |first3=Jaime |last3=Martínez-García |first4=Elena |last4=Monte |first5=Mariana |last5=Rodríguez-Falcon |first6=Esther |last6=Russo |first7=Salomé |last7=Prat |title=Regulation of potato tuberization by daylength and gibberellins |url=http://www.ijdb.ehu.es/abstract.01supp/s37.pdf |journal=[[International Journal of Developmental Biology]] |issue=45 |pages=S37–S38 |year=2001 |access-date=8 January 2009 |archive-date=6 February 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090206110630/http://www.ijdb.ehu.es/abstract.01supp/s37.pdf |url-status=dead}}</ref>

After flowering, potato plants produce [[Potato fruit|small green fruits]] that resemble green [[cherry tomato]]es, each containing about 300 very small [[seed]]s.<ref name="Plaisted">{{cite book |last=Plaisted |first=R. |editor=W. Fehr & H. Hadley |title=Hybridization of Crop Plants. |year=1982 |publisher=American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America |location=New York |pages=483–494 |chapter=Potato |isbn=0-89118-034-6}}</ref>