On Fri, 18 Oct 2002, Archimedes Plutonium wrote:
| Don't think underground vs. above ground: think storage vs. tasty
| treat. To oversimplify, the potato is storing energy that it can use
| to make quick growth next season; it "wants" to store as much energy
| in as efficient a package as possible. The tomato is bribing animals
| to eat it and thus disperse its seeds; it "wants" to make itself as
| attractive as possible to consumers.
|
|My attention is not focused on underground versus above ground as per
|energy. It is focused on this issue because there exists (I hypothesize)
|many plant species that had fruit like a tomato and then some mutation of
|the tomato fruit gave rise to the existence of the first potato.

I have seen tomato vines sprout 'roots' when lying close to the ground.

But I have never seen the fruit of the tomato sprout 'roots' when
lying close to the ground. Instead, the fruit is more likely to
rot if it comes in contact with the ground. Do you know of any
instances where the fruit of the tomato is the point from which
vines shoot out?

On Fri, 18 Oct 2002, Archimedes Plutonium wrote:
| Don't think underground vs. above ground: think storage vs. tasty
| treat. To oversimplify, the potato is storing energy that it can use
| to make quick growth next season; it "wants" to store as much energy
| in as efficient a package as possible. The tomato is bribing animals
| to eat it and thus disperse its seeds; it "wants" to make itself as
| attractive as possible to consumers.
|
|My attention is not focused on underground versus above ground as per
|energy. It is focused on this issue because there exists (I hypothesize)
|many plant species that had fruit like a tomato and then some mutation of
|the tomato fruit gave rise to the existence of the first potato.

I have seen tomato vines sprout 'roots' when lying close to the ground.

But I have never seen the fruit of the tomato sprout 'roots' when
lying close to the ground. Instead, the fruit is more likely to
rot if it comes in contact with the ground. Do you know of any
instances where the fruit of the tomato is the point from which
vines shoot out?