DEPARTMENT OF HORTICULTURE. 243 



38. Mikado (Turner Hybrid). Fruit very large, usually irregular, 

 much resembling Trophy, only that the color is pinkish- 

 purple. Too irregular to be recommended. 



§C. Validum. — Upright tomato. Stem very thick and stout, the plants nearly 

 sustaining themselves, two to two and a half feet high; leaves very dark 

 green, short and dense, the leaflets wrinkled and more or less recurved. 

 An odd plant with much the aspect of a potato plant. 



39. French TJpright or Tomate de Laye (Tree Tomato. Tomato 



a Tige Eoide). Fruit very irregular on the sides and base, 

 more or less cornered, nearly as large as Trophy, flattened, 

 bright yellowish-red, very late. Used for pot culture in 

 France. A chance seedling in the garden of M. de Fleurieux, 

 raised by Grenier, his gardener, some thirty years ago, at 

 Chateau de Laye, near Yillefranche, France. 

 § D. Pyeiforme. — Pear-shaped tomatoes {Ly coper sicum pyriforme Dunal). 

 Fruits more or less pear-shaped, two celled, conspicuously pendant. 



40. Peitr-Shaped. Fruit about two inches long, slender, con- 

 spicuously contracted towards the base, regular, bright red. 

 Occasionally a fruit becomes obscurely angled. 



41. jVisbifs Victoina. Fruifsmaller than in the last, more con- 



tracted towards the base, red ; leaves as in group B. Said to 

 be a seedling from Hathaway, but this is doubtful. 

 Yellow Plum. Fruits an inch and a half long; scarcely pear- 

 shaped; regular; bright yellow; often three-celled. 



II. LYCOPEESICUM PIMPINELLIFOLIUM Dunal, Solan. Syn. 3 (1816). 

 Solanum pi'mpinelUfolium, Linn. Sp. PI. Ed. ii. 265. Solanum racemi- 

 gerum Vilmorin. Lycopersicu^n racemosum of gardens. Solanum race- 

 mijlorum Vilmorin, PI. Pot. 560, not Dunal. Leaflets round-ovate, 

 obtuse, entire; plants, more slender and more diffuse than in L. esculen- 

 tum. 

 This is the Currant tomato. It is a native of Peru and Brazil. It has prob- 

 ably not been long in cultivation. It is evidently the Grape or Cluster tomato 

 of Burr's " Vegetables of America," 1863. The species has not yet been modi- 

 fied by domestication. The fruits are clear, bright red, somewhat larger than 

 a very large currant, and are borne in long, two-ranked clusters. The jilant is 

 very ornamental. If trained upon a trellis, near a window, it would make one 

 of the most attractive screens. The whole aspect of the plant is delicate. 



Thirteen species of Lycopersicum, or native tomatoes, have been described. 

 Many were describea from plants in cultivation, whose native countries were 

 unknown. Three of these species are now regarded as representing only our 

 common garden tomato, and are therefore held to be synonymous {L. esculeti- 

 tum, L. cerasiforme, L. pyriforme); another {L. pimpiinellifolium), is now in 

 cultivation. Of the remaining nine, only two or three are now supposed to 

 exist in nature; that is, the other six or seven were described solely from gar- 

 den plants. These two or three remaining wild tomatoes are natives of South 

 America They ought to be brought into cultivation. 



Note.— Onr Optimus stock was so badly mixed, or so unfixed in its character, that we could make 

 no satisfactory estimate of its character. A part of it appeared to be Hathaway and a paxt Climax. 



