In article ,
mel turner wrote:

Mel, you are posting a lot of really neat refs. Thanks! I'll have
to try to find some of these papers when I get time.

Whoever named the section Petota and the subgenus Potatoe must have
been snickering as he typed!

I found the abstract below particularly interesting in that I always
thought the eggplant (S.melongena) originated in India. I guess
Solanums are the veggies of Gondwanaland. This would make it a
really old genus, antedating the south Atlantic Ocean. No wonder
it's so huge.

TI: Implications for the phylogeny, classification, and biogeography
of Solanum from cpDNA restriction site variation.
AU: Olmstead-Richard-G {a}; Palmer-Jeffrey-D
SO: Systematic-Botany. 1997; 22 (1) 19-29..
AB: A phylogenetic analysis of Solanum based on chloroplast DNA
restriction site variation confirms previous findings that
Lycopersicon and Cyphomandra are derived from within Solanum. Three
out of four Solanum subgenera with more than one representative in
this analysis (Minon, Potatoe, Solanum) are found to be polyphyletic,
suggesting that the subgeneric classification of the genus needs
revision. Subgenus Leptostemonum is monophyletic within the context
of our sampling. Three primary clades can be distinguished within
Solanum. Clade I includes representatives of sections Archaesolanum,
Dulcamara, Holophylla, Jasminosolanum, and Solanum. Clade II includes
members of subgenus Potatoe (sections Basarthrum, Lycopersicon, and
Petota). Clade III includes all representatives sampled from subg.
Leptostemonum, sects. Allophyllum, Brevantherum, Geminata,
Pseudocapsocum, and Cyphomandropsis, and species formerly assigned to
Cyphomandra. Solanum as a whole and each of the three primary
clades appear to be New World in origin. Within Leptostemonum, African
and Australian members are derived from New World ancestors.