"David WE Roberts" wrote in message
...
In my back garden the 'soldiers' grown from last year's fallen tomatoes
are starting to ripen fruit.

From this I presume that they in turn could drop fruit to provide seed for
next year.

So what is there to stop tomatoes becoming naturalised in the UK?
I assume that the current climate is conducive to outdoor tomatoes and the
last winter was certainly pretty harsh.

Although I haven't seen tomatoes growing as weeds in mediteranean areas.

Cheers

Dave R

They are not indigenous to the UK because the term means they would have had
to have originated here. Lycopersicon, like many of the edible solonaceae,
comes from S America and the Galapogos.

They turn up everywhere people go in the UK and are particularly common
along riverbanks that have sewage farms (as are fig trees). This makes them
'casuals': there would have to be a regular self supporting breeding
population of them in a number of places before they would qualify as
naturalised

However, as you can see from this National Biodiversity Network 'gateway'
distribution map, they are well on the way to being naturalised, and they
are more common than many real native plants:

http://www.searchnbn.net/gridMap/gri...MSYS0000460517

Those really interested in these issues should join the Botanical Society of
the British Isles, and help take part in the fascinating activity of
recording the spread of such plants and the decline of our own. BSBI have
now turned many of their excellent newsletters into pdf form and the amount
of useful information they contain is a wonder in itself.

http://www.bsbi.org.uk/

S