Potato / Solanum tubersum

Some times, I feel you must think I am making these photos up .... How can they all be this different and unique. This flower looks like it has a small squash growing from its center. At first I thought it was Horse Nettle until I noticed the leaves. The Horse Nettle is a member of the nightshade family, which makes it related to the tomato, and has similar leaves to the tomato. This plant is also of the nightshade family but has oval shaped leaves. I think this flower is actually prettier than the Horse Nettle. I searched and searched and could not identify this flower. Finally, I asked the Hitchcock Center if they were able to identify it .... and of course they did. It is the Potato flower. This makes total sense because this flower is growing from my neglected compost pile, and I happened to have thrown a few potatoes into the compost pile a few months ago. I am not sure if I can consider this a wild flower..... but I guess at one time it was. It is the 4th most consumed plant on the planet.... I think wheat, rice and corn are the three most consumed plants. Potato has a very long and interesting history. The potato was discovered by European explorers during the 1500's in South America... of course those people living in Peru, and I think Chile, had been eating them for a very long time. It was not a plant that took off in Europe ... When introduced in France they thought the potato caused leprosy, rampant sexual behavior, syphilis ... and even early death. Finally, France outlawed the growing of the potato. That was in the 1600's .... later, during the 1700's, a French chemist convinced the King of France of their value as a food and the king allowed him to grow them on some acres outside of Paris. The  King then heavily guarded the field with his French army..... the peasants started to think that anything that well guarded had to be of great value and when the King very cleverly allowed the troops a night off.... the peasants raided the fields to gather some for their own gardens. It didn't take that much "Tom Foolery" to get other countries to adopt the potato.... but, North America was as slow, if not slower than France and did not really start eating them till the mid 1800's. Before that this country mostly grew them as a food for farm animals. Well, that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the lowly potato....

Where I found it : in my neglected compost pile

P. S. Marie Antoinette wore the potato flowers in her hair, and because of her, it became very fashionable in her day for others to do the same.