Re: Potato
Hello Eric,
On Tue, 30 May 2000, Eric G . Miller wrote:
> On Tue, May 30, 2000 at 12:33:56PM +0200, Kerstin Hoef-Emden wrote:
> >
> > A potato is a specialised starch storage organ of the potato plant,
> > necessary for vegetative reproduction. Starch is the carbohydrate, but
> > potato is the name for the organ and not for its content.
>
> Well, I was going to say about the same thing, but I couldn't remember
> if a potato was a real tuber, or a corm or a rhizome, ... Been awhile
> since Botany 101... (I don't think there's an 'irrelevantly' in the
> English language either. ;)
In this case I am suffering from the fact not being a native English
speaker, that's why I didn't go too much into detail (besides that, I
thought, it might be perhaps a little bit too pedant.)
In German it is called "Sproßknolle". My dictionary says: Sproß = shoot.
So the potato is a thickening of the shoot, not of the root as one
might think, even if they prefer growing in the dark.
From the point of view of the potato plant, it is sure not an option to
be considered as a donator of future to be pommes frites/chips/French
fries. That's why most parts are toxic. Although it is quite obvious,
that this trick doesn't help much against a hungry Homo sapiens.
Regards,
Kerstin
--
kerstin.hoef-emden@uni-koeln.de
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