The wild ancestors of cultivated potato: the brevicaule-complex

The closest relatives of the cultivated potato comprise a group of morphologically very similar species, which have been designated as the brevicaule-complex. The interrelationships among these species and their relationships to the cultivated species are unclear. The influences of the domestication process on these weedy plants may have determined their pattern of variation, making it difficult to assess the nature and delimitations of the entities to be recognized within this group. Multivariate methods were applied to analyse the taxonomic situation and the status of several of the involved species was evaluated.