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net/ deeply grooved, variegated, angora leaves, which have additional colors where a geneticmutation causes chlorophyll to be excluded from some portions of the leaves. [31] Their flowers,appearing on the apical meristem,have the anthers fused along the edges,forming a column surrounding the pistil's style. Flowers tend to be self-fertilizing. This isbecause they are native to the Americas, where there were no honeybees (which are native tothe old world). Similarly, many plants of the Americas are self-fertilizing, [32] while others arepollinated by flies, butterflies, moths, other insects, or other external forces that present in theAmericas, that made it possible for some new world plants to originally require bioticpollination.Tomato fruit is classified as a berry.As a true fruit, it develops from the ovary of the plantafter fertilization, its flesh comprising the pericarp walls. The fruit contains hollow spacesfull of seeds and moisture, called locular cavities. These vary, among cultivated species,according to type. Some smaller varieties have two cavities, globe-shaped varieties typicallyhave three to five, beefsteak tomatoes have a great number of smaller cavities, while pastetomatoes have very few, very small cavities.The seeds need to come from a mature fruit, and be dried/fermented before germination. Botanical classification In 1753 the tomato was placed in the genus Solanum by Linnaeus as Solanum lycopersicum L. (derivation, 'lyco', wolf ,plus 'persicum', peach, i.e., "wolf-peach"). Other species in thatfamily are potatoes, chili peppers, tobacco, eggplant and the poisonous belladonna.However,in 1768 Philip Miller placed it in its own genus, and he named it Lycopersicon esculentum .This name came into wide use but was in breach of the plant naming rules.Technically, thecombination Lycopersicon lycopersicum (L.) H.Karst. would be more correct, but this name(published in 1881) has hardly ever been used (except in seed catalogs, which frequently usedit and still do). Therefore, it was decided to conserve the well-known Lycopersiconesculentum , making this the correct name for the tomato when it is placed in the genus Lycopersicon .However, genetic evidence ( e.g., Peralta & Spooner 2001) has now shown that Linnaeus wascorrect in the placement of the tomato in the genus Solanum , making the Linnaean name correct; [1] if Lycopersicon is excluded from Solanum , Solanum

is left as a paraphyletic taxon.Despite this, it is likely that the exact taxonomic placement of the tomato will becontroversial for some time to come, with both names found in the literature. Two of themajor reasons that some still consider the genera separate are the leaf structure (tomato leavesare markedly different from any other Solanum ), and the biochemistry (many of the alkaloidscommon to other Solanum species are conspicuously absent in the tomato). The tomato canwith some difficulty be crossed with a few species of diploid Potato with viable offspring thatare capable of reproducing. Such hybrids provide conclusive evidence of the closerelationship between these genera.The Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research began sequencing the tomato genome in2004 and is creating a database of genomic sequences and information on the tomato andrelated plants. [33] A draft version of the full genome expected to be published by 2008. The

180 | P a g e C o o k i n g I n g r e d i e n t s / a t 3 5 8 5 @ g m a i l . c o m http://www.crazychefs.net/ genomes of its organelles (mitochondria and chloroplast)are also expected to be published aspart of the project. Breeding Active breeding programs are ongoing by individuals, universities, corporations, andorganizations. The Tomato Genetic Resource Center, U.S. Department of Agriculture'sAgricultural Research Service-Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN)[2], AVRDC, and numerous seed banks around the world store seed representing geneticvariations of value to modern agriculture. These seed stocks are available for legitimatebreeding and research efforts. While individual breeding efforts can produce useful results,the bulk of tomato breeding work is at universities and major agriculture related corporations.University breeding programs are active in Florida, North Carolina, New York, Oregon, andseveral other states as well as in numerous countries worldwide. These efforts have resultedin significant regionally adapted breeding lines and hybrids such as the Mountain series fromNorth Carolina. Corporations including Heinz, Monsanto, BHNSeed, Bejoseed, etc, havebreeding programs that attempt to improve production, size, shape, color, flavor, diseasetolerance, pest tolerance, nutritional value, and numerous other traits. Fruit or vegetable? Botanically, a tomato is the ovary,together with its seeds, of a flowering plant:therefore it isa fruit.However, the tomato is not as sweet as those foodstuffs usually called fruits and, froma culinary standpoint, it is typically served as part of a salad or main course of a meal, as arevegetables,rather than at dessert in the case of most fruits. As noted above, the termvegetable has no botanical meaning and is purely a culinary term. Originally the controversywas that tomatoes are treated as a fruit in home canning practices. Tomatoes are acidicenough to be processed in a water bath rather than a pressure cooker as "vegetables" require.This argument has had legal implications in the United States. In 1887, U.S. tariff laws thatimposed a duty on vegetables but not on fruits caused the tomato's status to become a matterof legal importance. The U.S. Supreme Court settled the controversy on May 10, 1893 bydeclaring that the tomato is a vegetable, based on the popular definition that classifiesvegetables by use, that they are generally served with dinner and not dessert( Nix v. Hedden (149 U.S. 304)). [34] The holding of the case applies only to the interpretation of the Tariff Actof March 3, 1883,and the court did not purport to reclassify the tomato for botanical or otherpurpose. Tomatoes have been designated the state vegetable of New Jersey. Arkansas tookboth sides by declaring the "South Arkansas Vine Ripe Pink Tomato" to be both the statefruit and the state vegetable in the same law, citing both its culinary and botanicalclassifications. In 2006, the Ohio House of Representatives passed a law that would havedeclared the tomato to be the official state fruit, but the bill died when the Ohio Senate failedto act on it. However, in April 2009 a new form of the bill passed, making the tomato theofficial fruit of the state of Ohio. Tomato juice has been the official beverage of Ohio since1965. A.W. Livingston,of Reynoldsburg, Ohio,played a large part in popularizing thetomato in the late 1800s.Due to the scientific definition of a fruit, the tomato remains a fruit when not dealing with UStariffs. Nor is it the only culinary vegetable that is a botanical fruit: eggplants, cucumbers, and squashes of all kinds (such as zucchini and pumpkins)share the same ambiguity.