Introduction: The Importance of Eggplant

In this chapter, I highlight how the eggplant, whilst being globally dwarfed by other members of the Solanaceae, notably potato and tomato, offers a number of important ecological, evolutionary and agronomic features making it unique and interesting, warranting further study. It also highlights the parallels and differences between Solanaceous crops. The eggplant genome is in the process of being finalised, and once this is available to researchers, it is likely we will see a surge of papers utilising this resource for understanding the genetic basis of these important traits.