Tomato

The tomato is a member of the Solanaceae or nightshades. The family is not as economically important as the grasses or the legumes; it, nevertheless, ranks near the top of any list of plant families that serve mankind. Next to potato, tomato is the second important crop of the family and belongs to the relatively small genus Lycopersicon. On behalf of its relationship with potato, Linnaeus classified tomato in his Species Plantarum (1753) and Genera Plantarum (1754) to the genus Solanum as S. lycopersicum L. Simultaneously, Philip Miller, in his Gardeners Dictionary (1754), distinguished the tomato from Solanum and recognized the genus Lycopersicon. ^{1 , 2 , 5} This name is derived from Greek and Latin words meaning wolfpeach. The name probably stems from a misidentification with the Lycopersicon of Galen, who lived in Pergamum in the 2nd century A.D. ² The species epithet esculentum means edible, but early references to the eating of tomatoes are rare. The plant and its fruit were remarkably slow to gain acceptance except as an ornamental or a medicinal plant, or as a curiosity. People knew it was related to such poisonous members of the nightshade family as S. nigrum, Atropa belladonna, and Datura stramonium. ^{2 , 3}