Solanum ajanhuiri Juz. & Bukasov, 1929

OVCHINNIKOVA, ANNA, KRYLOVA, EKATERINA, GAVRILENKO, TATJANA, SMEKALOVA, TAMARA, ZHUK, MIKHAIL, KNAPP, SANDRA & SPOONER, DAVID M., 2011, Taxonomy of cultivated potatoes (Solanum section Petota: Solanaceae), Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 165 (2), pp. 107-155 : 114-117

1. Solanum ajanhuiri Juz. & Bukasov ,

Trudy Vsesoyuzn. S”ezda Gen. Selekts. Semenov. Plemen. Zhivotnov.3: 605. 1929, as ‘ ahanhuiri ’.

Type: cultivated in Leningrad from tuber accession 4871/3534 collected in Bolivia (La Paz: altiplano, S. Juzepczuk 1744), 1929, S. Juzepczuk [1744] (lectotype, WIR! [ WIR-42400 ], designated by Ochoa, 1990: 308). Figure 1 .

Solanum ajanhuiri Juz. & Bukasov forma janckoajanhuiri Ochoa, Phytologia 65: 103. 1988.

Type: Bolivia. Oruro: prov. Poopó, Urmiri, 3750 m, C. Ochoa 3881 (holotype, CUZ! [original citation as herb. Ochoa]).

Solanum ajanhuiri Juz. & Bukasov var. yari Ochoa, Phytologia 65: 103. 1988.

Type: Bolivia. Oruro: prov. Poopó, Urmiri, 3750 m, C. Ochoa 3887 (holotype, CUZ! [original citation as herb. Ochoa]).

Description: Herbs 0.4–0.7 m tall, semi-rosette when young, developing to sub-rosette or to semi-erect. Stems 8–10 mm in diameter at base of plant, with narrow wings, densely pubescent, green to green and purple mottled. Sympodial units tri- to plurifoliate, not geminate. Leaves odd-pinnate, the blades 7–10 x 3.5–6.0 cm, dark green, membranous to chartaceous, densely pubescent adaxially and abaxially, with hairs like those of the stems; lateral leaβet pairs five or six, often subequal except for the most proximal one or two pairs that are greatly reduced in size; most distal lateral leaβets 4.5–7.0 x 2.0– 3.5 cm, elliptic lanceolate, broadly decurrent onto the rachis on the basiscopic side, the apex distinctly acute, the base oblique to rounded; terminal leaβet 5–9 x 2.5– 4.0 cm, elliptic lanceolate, the apex distinctly acute, the base oblique to rounded; interjected leaβets three to five, sessile to short petiolulate, elliptic lanceolate; petioles 1–3 cm, pubescent as the stems. Pseudostipules minute to 5 mm long, auriculate, pubescent with hairs like those of the stem. Inβorescences 5–10 cm, terminal with a subtending axillary bud, generally in distal half of the plant, usually forked, with 9–12 βowers, with all βowers apparently perfect, the axes pubescent with hairs like those of the stem; peduncle 10–15 cm long; pedicels 21–28 mm long in βower and fruit, spaced 1–10 mm apart, articulation indistinct or only slightly distinct, articulated high in the distal half. Flowers homostylous, pentamerous. Calyx 4–12 mm long, the tube 1–2 mm, the lobes 2–11 mm, narrowly elliptic, shortly acuminate, the acumens 1–4 mm long, with hairs like those of the stem. Corolla 2.5–3.5 cm in diameter, rotatepentagonal, white to white with mauve streaks to blue–mauve or blue–purple, the tube 1–2 mm long, the acumens 3–4 mm long, the corolla edges βat, not folded dorsally, glabrous abaxially, minutely puberulent adaxially, especially along the midribs, ciliate at the margins, especially at the tips of the corollas. Stamens with the filaments 1–2 mm long; anthers 4–6 mm long, lanceolate, connivent, yellow, poricidal at the tips, the pores lengthening to slits with age. Ovary glabrous; style 7.5–8.0 x 1 mm, exceeding stamens by 3–4 mm, straight, papillose on the proximal half; stigma capitate. Fruit a globose to ovoid berry, 2–3 cm in diameter, green or green tinged with purple when ripe, glabrous. Seeds from living specimens ovoid and c. 2 mm long, whitish to greenish in fresh condition and drying brownish, with a thick covering of ‘hair-like’ lateral walls of the testal cells that make the seeds mucilaginous when wet, green– white throughout; testal cells honeycomb-shaped when lateral walls removed by enzyme digestion. Chromosome number: 2 n = 2 x = 24 (Ochoa 10527, Herbarium of the International Potato Center, Lima, Peru).

Phenology: Flowering and fruiting from January to May.

Distribution: In cultivated fields in the high Andean altiplano between southern Peru and central Bolivia, at elevations between 3600 and 4100 m.

Solanum ajanhuiri is of hybrid origin from diploid forms of S. tuberosum (formerly classified as S. stenotomum Juz. & Bukasov ) and the wild species S. boliviense Dunal (including S. megistacrolobum ; see Solanaceae Source, http://www.solanaceaesource.org). Some landraces of S. ajanhuiri are probably the result of backcrossing to S. tuberosum . Those named ‘Sisu’ are believed to be triploid hybrids with the tetraploid wild species S. acaule ( Huamán et al., 1980; Johns et al., 1987). Landraces of S. ajanhuiri were distributed originally in the high Andean altiplano between southern Peru and central Bolivia at elevations between 3700 and 4100 m. However, in Peru, only the purple-skinned ‘Ajawiri’ is grown. In the International Potato Center genebank, there are 10 named landraces of S. ajanhuiri . These include ‘Jancko Ajawiri’, Laram Ajawiri’, ‘Jancko Yari’, ‘Wila Yari’, ‘Chañu Yari’, ‘Alka Yari’ and ‘Jancko Sisu Yari’ reported in Huamán et al. (1980). Others from Bolivia are ‘Chañu Ajawiri’, ‘Wila Palta Yari’ and ‘Wila Anckanche’ ( Huamán & Spooner, 2002).

The spelling of the epithet for S. ajanhuiri has been inconsistent in various treatments. In general, European taxonomists ( Hawkes & Hjerting, 1989; Hawkes, 1990) used the spelling ajanhuiri , whereas Ochoa (1990) used the spelling ahanhuiri. In the original publication of S. ajanhuiri, Juzepczuk & Bukasov (1929) used the spelling ‘ahanhuiri’, and also cited the Aymará common name of this potato as ‘Ahanhuiri’, with an ‘h’ as the latinized spelling of ‘j’ from Aymará/Spanish. Bukasov’s type specimen in WIR is annotated ‘ Solanum ajanhuiri ’ (see Fig. 1 ), and in all later treatments the Russian taxonomists used the spelling with the j (‘ ajanhuiri ’) rather than the h (‘ ahanhuiri ’). We follow the intention of the original authors (as evidenced by all of their subsequent treatments using this name) and treat this as a substantive name (noun) correctable to the intended original spelling as indicated by usage of the original describers.

Hawkes & Hjerting (1989: 384) lectotypified S. ajanhuiri from the many tuber accessions cited (Juzepczuk 1518, 1661, 1699, 1744 & 1800, all from the region of La Paz, Bolivia) with a specimen of Juzepczuk 1661 in LE. The only sheet of Juzepczuk 1661 in LE, however, was collected after the 1929 publication date of the epithet, and so is not the material used in the original description ( Ovchinnikova et al., 2009) and thus incorrect. Ochoa (1990) correctly lectotypified S. ajanhuiri with a sheet of another of the tuber accessions (Juzepczuk 1744) that had been made into herbarium material in 1929, but did not notice Hawkes & Hjerting’s (1989) error.

Solanum ajanhuiri is occasionally listed in indices as being published in 1930 ( Bukasov, 1930), rather than 1929. This is probably a result of the unavailability of the original 1929 publication ( Juzepczuk & Bukasov, 1929) in western libraries (see discussion under S. curtilobum below). The listing of S. ajanhuiri in Bukasov (1930) was not, in our view, an intentional publishing of a new name, but a use of one already published, but not widely known outside the former Soviet Union.

Figures

Figure 1. Lectotype specimen of Solanum ajanhuiri Juz. & Bukasov held in WIR (note spelling of specific epithet on this sheet, see text). Reproduced with permission of the N. I. Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry.