Vegetable

Solanum tuberosum

A tier

Solanum tuberosum is the cultivated potato species that left the Andes and remade global starch diets. Thousands of cultivars span floury bakers, waxy salad types, and coloured flesh under one botanical umbrella. Tubers store starch in underground stems, not true roots—a detail that shapes how cuts brown, gelatinise, and crisp in hot fat or dry ovens. Every supermarket russet, red, or yellow belongs here unless you meet rare related species in specialty Andean markets. Breeding for blight resistance, dry matter, and fry colour never stops. When recipes say “potato” without a cultivar, they assume tuberosum of some market class suited to the technique at hand.