This mother form, even as delimited by the mutations just mentioned, is much the most common one in cultivation. Its early stage of growth is fairly represented by the accompanying Fig. 2. The form to which the name L. solanopsis is given is well represented in a similar stage of growth by Fig. 1. Short descriptions of these two forms are recorded on a following page. I am not now able to present a figure of L. latifoliatum, but it is represented by the plant which bears the fruit variety known to gardeners as the Mikado, or Turner's hybrid. I think the latter name, when applied to the plant, is misleading because this specific plant form doubtless originated by true mutation, as L. solanopsis has done; and it is by no means certain that even the fruit variety which it then bore originated by hybridization.
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| Fig. 1. Representing L. solanopsis, the Daughter Form. | Fig. 2. Representing L. esculentum, the Mother Form. | |
The difference of L. latifoliatum from the two other forms mentioned is conspicuously seen in its peculiar foliage, the leaves having decurrent petioles and broad, flattened leaflets with their borders entire instead of notched or crenulated. These three species are as well defined and distinct as are any others of the dozen recognized species of Lycopersicum, and as distinct as are many of the recognized species of other plants, whether wild or cultivated, and there is apparently no tendency of the two derived species to revert to the mother form. I do not know of any case of hybridity between any two of them, and no indication of further mutation of the two new species has been observed.
It is from these three specific plant forms that the improved fruit varieties have arisen. The greater part of them have arisen from L. esculentum, as that species has been delimited; a considerable number have arisen from L. solanopsis, while L. latifoliatum has hitherto shown the minimum of varietal change in its fruit. These varieties
