Solanum brevicaule

{{Short description|Species of flowering plant}}

{{Speciesbox

|image =Solanum gourlayi1.jpg

|genus = Solanum

|species = brevicaule

|authority = Bitter

}}

Solanum brevicaule is a tuberous perennial plant of the family Solanaceae. The species is native to South America (Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru). It is related to the potato, but unlike the potato which is tetraploid, it has several levels of ploidy: diploid, tetraploid, and hexaploid.

This species gives its name to the "Solanum brevicaule complex" which includes about twenty species of morphologically close wild potato species distributed between central Peru and northern Argentina, and are considered by some taxonomists to be the ancestors of the traditional varieties of potatoes grown in the Andean regions.{{cite web | author = David Spooner | title = Roadmaps to the origins of potato | work = International Year of the Potato 2008 | url = http://www.fao.org/potato-2008/en/perspectives/spooner.html | accessdate = 24 October 2011 | archive-date = 2 April 2015 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150402180311/http://www.fao.org/potato-2008/en/perspectives/spooner.html | url-status = dead }}