In article . 10,
Victoria Clare writes
Kay Easton wrote in
:

So you've made me think ...
Tomato is Lycopersicum. Blue is a colour that pops up frequetnly in
Solanum - woody nightshade, aubergine etc.
Are there any Lycopersicum with blue flowers?

Google doesn't seem to know of any: every reference I could find is to
yellow flowers.

How many did you find? There are only 7 species of Lycopersicon in
total. Two (tomato and L rostratum have yellow flowers, so that's only 5
left to check!)

Though as tomatoes started off being imported as a poisonous decorative,
and have mutated into all sorts of edible forms ( WHO decided to do
that, and how many stomach aches did they suffer before it worked?),

Well - maybe none! Solanum has many species with edible fruit, and
Lycopersicon is close enough for the tomato to have originally been
classified as Solanum, so maybe it was edible all along and the breeding
has just been for bigger and juicier fruits.
I
bet it would be possible to breed one.

Not necessarily. To get a particular colour, you need the genes for
producing the chemical to provide that colour, and if it's not there in
the close relatives, you're not going to be able to breed it in. Blue
and yellow don't seem to occur that often in the same plants (somebody
is going to say 'pansy') - blue and pink go together a lot easier - look
at all the forget-me-not/lungwort/borage group.

Solanums have purple (potato, aubergine) and white (potato) but do they
have yellow? Datura/Brugmansia have both purple and yellow. But if you
can't find a blue/purple close enough to tomato to cross breed, you're
not going to get a blue flowered tomato.

Didn't we have a similar discussion about potato flowers (which do seem
to be more variable than tomato ones)?

Never seen a yellow one ;-)


--
Kay Easton

Edward's earthworm page:
http://www.scarboro.demon.co.uk/edward/index.htm