346 sturtevant's notes on edible plants 



fort names a pale red, red, a yellow and a white variety in France, and Mawe, 1778, 

 names but the common large red in England. In 1854, Brown describes but two varieties, 

 the large red and the large yellow, for American gardens. 



II. 



The Round Tomato. 



Of the roimd tomato, there are no indications of its being known to the early botanists, 

 the first apparent reference being by Toumefort in 1700,' who places among his varieties 

 the Lycopersicum rubra non striata, the non striata, not fluted or ribbed, implying the roimd 

 form; and this same variety was catalogued by Tilly ^ at Pisa in 1723. In 1842, some 

 seed of the Fiji Island variety was distributed in Philadelphia, and Wilkes' describes 

 the fruit of one variety as round, smooth, yellow, the size of a large peach, and the fnut 

 of two other varieties as the size of a small egg, but gives no other particulars. This is 

 the first certain reference to this group. The large, smooth or round, red and the small^ 

 yellow, oval tomato of Browne,* 1854, may belong here. Here, also may be classed such 

 varieties as Hathaway's Excelsior, King Humbert and the Plum, and some of the tamate 

 pamme varieties of the French. 



The round form occasionally appears in the plants from seed of hybrid origin, for 

 when the cross was made between the currant and the tree tomato, some plants thus 

 obtained yielded fruit of the plimi type. This, however, may have been atavism. The 

 botanical relations seem nearer to the cherry tomato than to the ordinary forms. 



III. 



Synonymy of the Cherry Tomato. 



The cherry tomato is recorded as growing spontaneously in Peru, in the West Indies,' 

 Antilles,' southern Texas ' and New Jersey. There Avere red and yellow varieties in 

 Europe as early as 1623 and these are mentioned in 1783 by Bryant * as if they were the 

 only sorts in general culture in England at this time, but Mawe,' 1778, enimierates the 

 large red, as also the red and yellow cherry, as imder garden culture. The following is its 

 synonymy, mostly founded on description: 



Solanum racemosum cerasarum. Bauh. Pin. 167. 1623; Prad. 90. 1671. 



Solanum amoris minus S. mala aethiopica parva. Park. Par. 379. 1629. 



Cujus fructus plane similis erat, mxignitudine, figura, colore, Sirychnodendro. etc. 

 Rechius Notes, Hemand, 296. 1651. 



Fructus est cersan instar (quoad magnitudine) . Hart. Reg. Bles. 310. 1669. 



Salanum pomiferum fructu rotunda, molli parva rubra plana. Ray 3:352. 1704. 



' Toumefort Inst. 150. 1719. 



' Tillus Cat. Horl. Pisa 106. 1723. 



'Wilkes, C. U. S. Explor. Exped. 3:335. 1845. 



< Browne U. S. Pat. Off. Rpt. 385. 1854. 



Sloane, H. Cat. 109. 1696. 



Descourtilz, M. E. Ft. Antitl. 5:279. 1821-29. 

 'Gray, A. Synopt. Ft. 2:226. 1878. 



Bryant Ft. Diet. 1783. 



Mawe and Abercrombie Univ. Card. Bot. 1778. (Solanum lycopersicum) 



