Contrary to views that cassava (Manihot esculenta) is only known in cultivation an argument is made that wild accessions of the species grow over much of the American neotropics, in Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, Guyana, and Surinam. Three subspecies are recognized. M. esculenta subsp. esculenta is the domesticate and includes all cultivars known in cultivation. The wild M. esculenta subsp. peruviana occurs in eastern Peru and western Brazil. The wild M. esculenta subsp. flabellifolia shows a wider distribution and ranges from the central Brazilian state of Goias northward to Venezuelan Amazonia. The large area of distribution of the two wild subspecies makes it difficult to assign a place of initial domestication.