Solanum vernei
2n = 2x = 24 voucher: Okada 4477 (BAL) (Hijmans, et al. 2007)
Solanum vernei occurs in northern Argentina (Provs. Jujuy, Salta, Tucumán and Catamarca), in steep grassy mountain slopes, under bushes, growing in the sun but also in shaded valleys, in rich humid soil, at the edge of cultivated fields, along ditches; 2270-3600 m in elevation.
Solanum vernei is a member of Solanum sect. Petota Dumort., the tuber-bearing cultivated and wild potatoes. Within sect. Petota, Solanum vernei is a member of a very diverse clade related to the cultivated potato. On a higher taxonomic level, it is a member of the informally-named Potato Clade, a group of perhaps 200-300 species that also includes the tomato and its wild relatives (Bohs, 2005).
Hawkes, J.G. & J.P. Hjerting 1969. The potatoes of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay: a biosystematic study.
Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, UK.
Bohs, L. 2005. Major clades in Solanum based on ndhF sequences.
Pp. 27-49 in R. C. Keating, V. C. Hollowell, & T. B. Croat (eds.), A festschrift for William G. D’Arcy: the legacy of a taxonomist. Monographs in Systematic Botany from the Missouri Botanical Garden, Vol. 104. Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis.
Hijmans, R., T. Gavrilenko, S. Stephenson, J. Bamberg, A. Salas & D.M. Spooner 2007. Geographic and environmental range expansion through polyploidy in wild potatoes (Solanum section Petota).
Global Ecol. Biogeogr. 16: 485-495.
Hawkes and Hjerting (1969) distinguished subsp. vernei from subsp. ballsii by lateral leaflet characters, with subsp. vernei having the lateral leaflets (except the upper pair) clearly petiolulate, with the apex markedly acuminate and the base gently rounded, and subsp. ballsii with all leaflets sessile or very shortly petiolulate, the leaflet apex obtuse to acute or barely acuminate, and the base markedly auriculate on the basiscopic side. Subsp. vernei is found in the southern distribution of the species range in southern Salta Province through Tucumán and Catamarca, with subsp. ballsii distributed from northern Salta Province just south of the border with Bolivia, south through Prov. Jujuy. They mapped “intermediate forms” in the intersecting areas in Salta Province (Hawkes and Hjerting 1969, Fig. 11). We examined 30 randomly chosen accessions from throughout this distribution area (except the “intermediate area” in Salta Province) from north to south and found all of these characters to vary throughout the range of S. vernei. Therefore, we do not recognize subspecific entities in S. vernei.