A root vegetable native to the Americas, the potato is a tuber of the plant Solanum tuberosum.. The wild potato species can be found from the southern United States to southernChile.. The potato was thought to have been domesticated by Native Americans in multiple locations, but later genetic studies showed a single origin in the area of present-day southern Peru and extreme northwestern Bolivia.. The Solanum brevicaule complex was where potatoes were domesticated 7,000–10,000 years ago.
