Giant potato flower
 

This is the largest I have grown so far, it is huge[IMG]http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/ab61/wingnutpeaches/DSCF2398.jpg[/IMG]!

Looks just like it's relative, the petunia!

That is a very nice looking flower for a potato plant.

[QUOTE=salix;284279]Looks just like it's relative, the petunia![/QUOTE]

Very interesting information! I didn't know they were related until you mentioned it. The flower does look like a petunia.

I some with deeper darker color, but this one is almost twice the size as most.[IMG]http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/ab61/wingnutpeaches/DSCF2406.jpg[/IMG]

Potatoes aren't particularly close in relation to morning glory. They're much more related to tomatoes. Sweet potatoes, however, are in the same genus as the morning glory.

I don't have any flowers that big, but I have one that's a similar shade and one that's lighter in color. Both have at least one berry on them, so I'm pretty pleased, but they don't leave the kind of impression your giant flower does. What a great decorative bonus feature!

Something I meant to relate last year - a few small volunteer plants popped up from my bed of TPS seedlings. While cleaning up the beds, I noticed that one of the flowering TPS volunteers which just happened to end up on the top of the wheelbarrow had a very piercing sweet scent, what a nice bonus!

My potato patch is quite sweet smelling at the moment.

I should try to notice the smell of the plants.Last year one of Tom's Squat Orange TPS plants looked just like a tomato plant but I knew it was potato. Was quite beautiful too..

After reading posts a week ago, I checked the flowers on my Kennebec potato plants and they do have a scent to them. I never would have guessed that flowers on potato plants had a scent.

Potato flowers having a scent, wow, what a bonus. I love items that have or provide more than one use.

The scent varies from VERY nice to not so pleasant depending on variety.Some have little or no scent.

Good sized flower alright,what's the variety??

It is pokipsie. A deep eyed fingerling type, with burgundy colored skin with brown striping/mottling. A real neat variety.

You are definitely correct about the scent. My Kennebec did have a scent, but it wasn't the most pleasant scent.

[QUOTE=Mark0820;287530]You are definitely correct about the scent. My Kennebec did have a scent, but it wasn't the most pleasant scent.[/QUOTE]I'll have to check out the scent of my potatoes. They bloom abundantly, but there is no berry set (yet).

Ive never ever noticed a scent coming from my spud patch,:?!?:can see myself being nose down,bum up this coming season checking out the flowers :twisted:

This is Toms variety 'poor dog' originally named pokipsie[IMG]http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/ab61/wingnutpeaches/DSCF2439.jpg[/IMG]

Could you tell what varietes had that nice smelling flowers? Big flower is great:)

Aggie gold has a very nice scent, if not a little overpowering.

Hm I guess I can't get it here.. :/ Well, I will keep smelling others. Always though that potatoe flowers are scentless.. Ornamental colourfull, big flowered and scented AND still tasty potatoes.. that would be something :) [and of course blight-resistant ones;)]

Tom can send you seed I'm sure.

Wow they look sooo nice,

Also very creative arrangement there Doug,the two eyes,the middle spud with its nostrils and the smile,now come on,did you arrange that intentionally??:twisted:

I'd like to say it just happened...but it was planned!

I wonder how many potato varietes have red flowers.. I just imagined that huge flower in other colours, or maybe even double. VERY ornamental. :)I hope that your giant flowers will set some berries, wingnut :)

I have many berries on a few hundred varieties, includeing this one. Many are ripe enough to pick now ALOT more will be ready to pick by October.

Wow it sounds like a really big breeding plan. :) Lot's of possibilities

Trying to find a "RED FLOWERED" potato might be a bit difficult. Most that come close are a reddish violet or pinkish mauve. Oh, and doubled flowers on potatoes....yes...I have some lines with extra petals between the anther cone and the regular petals. I need to take a photo of those. I would have to keep those doubled flowering lines tuber lines since they seem not to set berries so well. That would be a project for the future...seeing if I could self them to concentrate whatever genes are responsible.

Meanwhile...back to red flowers....I named a second year seedling tuber line out of Boyd Dude as BOISE just today. The flowers are not exactly red...see for yourself below....but the brilliant red skin...near yellow/orange flesh seems to carry some linkage for somewhat reddish flowers. The picture below shows my BLACK IRISH potato variety with its white flowers and near black anthers in the background. I made the cross of BOISE X BLACK IRISH moments later.

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/6bhat.jpg[/IMG]

Both parents look very healthy :)

I was trying to find that picture again, and now I think that red flowered one was a wild one.
[url]http://www.scri.ac.uk/research/genetics/biodiversity/cpcdiversity[/url] - here on "Figure 3" are some pink flowers
[url]http://www.scri.ac.uk/scri/files/IIPP%20presentations/JohnBradshaw.pdf[/url] and in that pdf slide nr 20.
So, probably they are unedible..