Solanum lycopersicum L.

Erect or sprawling annual or short-lived perennial herb 50–150 cm high, often densely pubescent with glandular and eglandular simple hairs, aromatic, clammy, without prickles. Leaves alternate, usually deeply pinnate to pinnatisect with c. 7–9 major petiolulate 'lobes' (these lobes entire or with sessile or petiolulate lobes; also often with sessile or petiolulate interstitial leaflets), ovate in outline, to 30 cm long, leaflet margins entire, irregularly dentate or lobulate; petiole c. 2–5 cm long. Inflorescence raceme-or cyme-like. Flowers bisexual; pedicel articulate above middle. Calyx deeply 5-lobed, green, the lobes narrowly lanceolate-triangular, 4–10 mm long. Corolla stellate, 5-lobed, to 25 mm diam., yellow, the lobes narrowly triangular, to 10 mm long, often reflexed. Stamens 5, equal; anthers bilocular, basifixed, each with apical, sterile appendage, cohering to form a cone around style, dehiscing inwards by longitudinal slits, 5–10 mm long, including sterile appendage 2–3 mm long. Ovary bilocular, glabrous or pubescent; stigma capitate. Berry globular or depressed-globular, 10–20 mm diam. (usually 5–10 cm diam., smooth to furrowed in cultivars), fleshy, usually red at maturity. Seeds numerous, 2–3 mm long, pilose, yellow-grey. For more detailed description see Muller (1940), Symon (1981a), Ohlsen (2016).

Occasionally escapes from cultivation, or spread by dumped garden refuse, food waste, and discarded fruit. Recorded from roadsides, drainage channels, along urban waterways, stock sale yards, weedy sites, parks, near picnic grounds and campsites; also natural areas (including reserves) and vegetation, e.g. scrub clearings, riversides, riparian vegetation, rainforest, a Cormorant rookery, coastal dunal scrub. Often occurs near settlement but also found where transport vectors, including people, have carried the fruit and seed, e.g. spread into natural areas by birds and other animals that eat the fruit, and by people participating in outdoor activities. The seeds can survive the human gut and sewage.

Widely grown for its edible fruit, the cultivated tomato is an important food crop, grown worldwide and naturalised in many countries in tropical to warm temperate areas (but also often grown in glasshouses), including Australia. There are many forms of cultivated tomatoes; cultivars with fruit of various shapes, size and colours. Tomatoes are used widely as a fresh fruit vegetable eaten raw, or used in cooking and processed foods; they are a key ingredient in many recipes and cuisines. Tomato Sauce, or Ketchup, is one of the most well known of condiments. Tomatoes have nutritional and health benefits, with a number of medicinal uses. They are a major dietary source of the antioxidant lycopene, as well as vitamin C and other vitamins and minerals. According to D.A. Powell, up to the late 1950s the Cherry Tomato was used as a salad vegetable on Christmas Island, but when the cultivated tomato was brought to the island by ship and plane there was no longer any demand for the smaller fruits of the Cherry Tomato (Barker & Telford 1993: 339). However, Cherry Tomatoes in their many forms (with numerous cultivars) remain popular in cultivation in home gardens and as a commercial crop in many parts of Australia.

Can be grown by seedlings.