IRISH GARDENING. 



The New Potato 



" Solanum Commersonii Violet." 



By GEO. H. PETHYBRIDGE, Ph.D., B.Sc. 



SINCE a good deal has been heard during- 

 the last couple of years about a new potato 

 with the above name, a short account of 

 its origin may prove interesting-. The French 

 botanist, P. Commerson, discovered, soon after 

 the middle of the eig^hteenth century (1767), 

 a wild solanaceous plant growing- on the 

 shore near Monte 

 V^deo, in Urug-uay 

 {i.e., on the eastern 

 side of South 

 America — the wild 

 plant from which the 

 ordinary potato has 

 arisen being- found on 

 the western side o( 

 the Andes), which he 

 at first thought was 

 a kind of tomato. 

 The plant was named 

 in 1816 by Professor 

 Dunal in his mono- 

 graph of the Sol- 

 an ace cE, Solan iivi 

 Coviniersonii, after its 

 discoverer. S u b- 

 sequently, it appears 

 to have been intro- 

 duced into France 

 on three separate 

 occasions — first in 

 1822, then in 1881, 

 and lastly, in 1896. 

 On the last occasion 

 unnamed tubers were 

 sent to the Uru- 

 guayan Consul in 

 Marseilles, and 

 these, planted in the 

 botanical gardens of 

 that city, were found 



by the Director, Dr. Heckel, to produce Solanum 

 C'fl/nmcrsonn plants. Since this time Dr. Heckel 

 has cultivated the plant every year, and has 

 made careful studies of it with regard to its 

 botanical characteristics and to its geographical 

 distribution, and in one of his papers he speaks 

 of it as the "aquatic potato of Uruguay." 

 He has also distributed its tubers to other 

 growers, and some of them were grown, we 

 believe, a few years ago in the Botanic Gardens. 

 Glasnevin. 



Professor Wittmach, in Berlin, cultivated the 

 plant there for some seasons, but with little 

 success as regards improvement in size of the 



The New Potato " Solanum Commersonii Violet.' 



tubers and in other qualities which might have 

 led to its introduction as a commercial \-ariety. 

 In Marseilles, however, the plant ga\-e, as time 

 went on, larger and better tubers, which were 

 richer in starch and which lost to a great extent, 

 but not entirely, the bitter taste of the original 

 tubers. At the same time they remained ex- 

 ceedingly tough, and were not softened even 

 after boiling for some hours. 



More favourable results were obtained by M. 

 Laberg-erie, of Verrieres, in west-central France, 

 who thinks that the species is worthy of atten- 

 tion as a starting-point for a commercial potato 



suitable to wet and 

 boggy lands. It may 

 be mentioned in 

 passing- that this wild 

 species is not immune 

 to the blight (P/ivlo- 

 phtJioi-a hifcslans), 

 although iiaturall}- 

 during the first few 

 }ears o[ its culti- 

 vation it suffered less 

 from this fungus 

 than varieties of the 

 c o ni ni o n p o t a t o 

 which ha\e been 

 long in cultivation. 



The ameliorations 

 which this wild 

 species presented 



during a few vears 

 of culUu-e h\- M. 

 Labergerie were, 

 however, as nothing 

 when compared with 

 the transformations 

 which it underwent 

 during the same time. 

 These transforma- 

 tions were observable 

 in the aerial parts 

 of the plants as well 

 as in the tubers, and 

 were very numerous, 



especially in 1904.* 

 But up to 1905 the only one of these trans- 

 formations which had really become fixed was 

 one in which"violet-coloured tubers were borne, 

 which had appeared as a sport in 1901. 



Amongst the plants of the wild Solanum Com- 

 /nersonu, grown in thisyear by M. Labergerie from 

 tubers supplied by Dr. Heckel, was one which 

 was conspicuous for its greater size, and for 

 the fact that it bore near the surface of the soil 

 two tubers of a blackish violet colour, totally 

 unlike those of the original wild tuber. The 



* Curiously enough, none of these tran.sformation.s, 

 of the wild type noticed by Laberg-erie in Verriere.s were 

 observed bv Dr. Heckel in his cultures in Marseilles. 



