Did you know potatoes and tomatoes are in the same genus? It’s called solanum.

After my carbon sequestering potato plants flowered they produced a fruit that looked like a little tomato.

I had noticed similarities between potato and tomato plants before, but here is another one I had hitherto not seen.

This is what the pedia says about potato fruit:

After potato plants flower, some varieties will produce small green fruits that resemble green cherry tomatoes, each containing up to 300 true seeds.

[...]

Potato fruit contains large amounts of the toxic alkaloid solanine, and is therefore unsuitable for consumption.

Also, I learned that the UN declared this year, 2008, the International Year of the Potato (rice year was 2004).

• Unexpected flowers 15 April 2008