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A potato that Native Alaskan communities grew hundreds of years ago is making a reappearance in Juneau.

The heirloom Tlingit potato takes almost too well to Southeast Alaska's moist climate, said Merrill Jensen, manager of the Jensen-Olson Arboretum. He expects as many as 1,500 pounds of the vegetable to be harvested next month from four rows of plants sprouting in the city-owned garden.

The potatoes will be distributed in Native Alaskan communities around Southeast for consumption.

Jensen (no relation to the arboretum's namesake) said the yellowish and somewhat lumpy potatoes are not so good mashed but taste great in soups or roasted. He hopes the communities will replant some of them and grow their own potato patches in the future.

The tubers came from the personal garden of Juneau residents Richard and Nora Dauenhauer, who received their first seed potatoes in 1994 from Maria (Ackerman) Miller.

Miller, a Tlingit woman from Haines, grew them in her backyard and told the Dauenhauers they had been in her family for more than 100 years, Richard Dauenhauer said. Miller died in 1995 and was a well-known Chilkat blanket weaver and good childhood friend of Nora's.

The Dauenhauers grew the tubers for some years when Betsy Kunibe, an anthropology student at University of Alaska Southeast, found out about them and sent a few to a geneticist for DNA testing.

They are distinct unto themselves, but similar to two other varieties of Native American potatoes. The testing showed a close link to the Ozette potato from the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state and another potato from Kasaan on Prince of Wales Island.

"These three potatoes came out as amazingly closely related, in addition to some collections from Mexico and Chile," said Chuck Brown, a research geneticist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture who tested the Tlingit potato.

The Dauenhauers decided to call the freshly documented vegetable Maria's Potato, in honor of their friend.

Brown, who has studied Native American potatoes in Washington state, said Chilean potatoes were likely taken to Mexico in the late 1700s, where they were put on Spanish boats exploring the west coast of North America for a northwest passage.

The Spanish probably introduced the Ozette potato to the Makah Nation when they had a fort on the Olympic Peninsula in 1792, Brown said.

"It's not at all hard to imagine that Maria's Potato came in at the same time," Brown said. "Potatoes are very easy to transport and they keep well. I think they were an important trade good because they were a good energy food for people who ate high protein foods but were involved in a rigorous lifestyle."

In the early 1800s, the potatoes became an item of commerce in Southeast Alaska, when Russian fleets contracted Haida and Tlingit tribes to grow them.

Today on the Olympic Peninsula, the Makah grow the Ozette potato but don't sell them, Brown said.

"It's very much a part of their culture, often given as gifts to grandparents," Brown said.

K' nts' is the Tlingit word for potato.

"I had no idea these indigenous potatoes were so rare," Dauenhauer said. "The idea I had a species in my backyard that had never been documented was kind of overwhelming."

The potatoes were a new addition to the arboretum in 2007, when Jensen planted five rooted cuttings.

Last year the garden, itself more than 100 years old, yielded about 70 pounds of potatoes from only a dozen plants. Jensen put in 350 plants this year.

Another patch at the Gruening Park Residential Community Garden is producing plants more than 4 feet high, manager Jane Efshen said.

They grow better than other vegetables Jensen has planted and keep in a basement or root cellar for a long time. "I can see why they've been around forever," Jensen said.

The potatoes will be ready for harvest in about six weeks. Darren Snyder at the University of Alaska's Cooperative Extension Service is organizing a field day so that local children can help dig them up.

Before the tubers can be used as seed, they will be tested for a potato virus that can reduce future crop yields but don't hurt people who eat them.

The goal is to make sure that no seeds containing the virus are passed around for replanting, said Jodie Anderson, an instructor and director at the Alaska Community Horticultural Program in Palmer.

Anderson is scheduled to visit Juneau and test the plants this month.

• Contact reporter Kim Marquis at 523-2279 or by e-mail at kim.marquis@juneauempire.com.