Horticultural Division. 



455 



They keep well. The flesh is very yellow. When cooked, the 

 flavor is rich and possesses a slight aroma which is not present in 

 the common potatoes. The plants usually produce balls freely. 

 This potato is, probably, the Solanum tuberosum var. boreale 

 of Gray, although it has the interposed small leaflets which that 

 plant is supposed to lack. It occurs in a wild staite from the 

 Montezuma valley, Ck)lorado, to New Mexico, southwards in the 

 mountains in Mexico. This wild potato of the north appears to 

 have been first brought to notice in 18.56 by Dr. A. J. Myers, of 

 the Ignited States army, who found it in western Texas. He 



Mexican Wild Potato. 



sent specimens to Asa Gray, who named it Solanum Fendleri, in 

 honor of Augustus Fendler, an early botanical explorer of the 

 southwest. Dr. Gray afterwards considered it to be only a 

 geographical variety of the potato and renamed it Solanum 

 tuberosum var. boreale. The account of the plant as seen by 

 Dr. Myers, contains the following reference to the tubers: "The 

 tubers, though small, being rarely as large as a hickory-nut, have 

 been gathered, cooked and eaten by officers and soldiers, and 

 they proved both palatable and innocent." This plant was grown 

 in 1888 by the Colorado Experiment Station from wild Colorado 

 tubers. The tubers under cultivation were " quite large relat- 



