name that tomato

inthewinecountry · May 20, 2011

Can someone help me in identifying a tomato? I don't know how to post pictures so can only describe it. Recently in my local grocery store I spied a box labeled heirloom tomatoes. Imagine my surprise when I saw they came from Canada! One in particular caught my eye. It was very red and shaped like a turban or Hershey's kiss and was very pleated. I since found this shape might be called bulls heart but I have grown bulls heart before and never seen one so ribbed. I found a similar one on Solana seeds web site called "red pear Franchi" but the one here is more heavily ribbed. Also looking on the net to see if the "Franchi" was it I found other sites showing pictures and again not looking so heavily pleated.

Any suggestions?

Charles

habitat_gardener · May 20, 2011

Also look under "piriform" and "fig."

The description of Amy Goldman's Italian-American is pleated and bottom-heavy. I've been wanting to grow it for several years and still haven't gotten a round tuit.

**carolyn137** · May 20, 2011

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/wiki/Piriform

Above is a link to Tania's data base page for piriform which is a word that indicates pear shaped, as in bottom heavy. And you'll see that on that same page she also mentions several others that are pear shaped, some more pleated than others.

There's no way to ID your tomato b'c once a label or tag or whatever, is separated from the actual plant or fruit there's no way to ID it.

Johnny's Selected Seeds is in Maine and they offer a couple of piriform varieties and not being that far from Canada perhaps thats the source of seeds, just a mild suggestion.

Heart varieties, as in Bull's Heart and maybe 200 other heart shaped varieties, have the opposite shape from a piriform in that piriforms are bottom heavy and heart shaped ones are top heavy tapering to a point at the bottom.

Did you take some seeds out of the fruit you bought?

inthewinecountry · May 21, 2011

Thank you Carolyn,
Tatiana's web site is great and as I said on another post, it is amazing to see how people have different growing conditions for tomatoes where they are at. I can't imagine trying to grow tomatoes in BC Canada. Her web site was very helpful. Good call on suggesting the Piniform but I guess I need to be more specific, my fault. The tomato I found came to a point on its end. Setting it on its stem end, its form looked like a Hersheys kiss. And yes I saved some seed, hoping being hot house grown it will be true to parent.

Thanks, Charles

**carolyn137** · May 21, 2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by inthewinecountry

Thank you Carolyn,
Tatiana's web site is great and as I said on another post, it is amazing to see how people have different growing conditions for tomatoes where they are at. I can't imagine trying to grow tomatoes in BC Canada. Her web site was very helpful. Good call on suggesting the Piniform but I guess I need to be more specific, my fault. The tomato I found came to a point on its end. Setting it on its stem end, its form looked like a Hersheys kiss. And yes I saved some seed, hoping being hot house grown it will be true to parent.

Thanks, Charles

Got it, as in what you got was a heart not a pear shaped, piriform, type fruit.

Well, you've got a couple of hundred heart varieties to chose from, but honestly, that comes down to less when color comes into play. But no, you aren't going to be able to say what specific variety it is, ever.

Where Tania live in BC it's quite temperate and her temps are even warmer than mine here in upstate NY.

So save those seeds and when you do plant it out be sure to let us know what it looks like, but off hand I can't think of any hearts that are heavily pleasted/ribbed, as you mentioned above. All that I've grown are quite smooth and I've grown lots of hearts b'c they're one of my favorites.

inthewinecountry · May 21, 2011

Carolyn,
Thank you again. I see from the tatiana web site there are hundreds. Wish she had more photos of the different tomatoes listed. Of the few I did see, only one had faint ribbing. Well so little time and too many things to do. Got to finish up in the garden today or wife will kill me. I think I might try next to track down produce manager and ask who the vendor was who supplied the tomatoes. They might be able to get me the name of the grower in Canada.

Charles

shlacm · May 21, 2011

Another thought... correct me if I'm wrong (Carolyn & others! I'm extremely new to all of this!)... can't the weather cause non-hearts to appear heart-shaped at times? Also the ribbing could actually be from fused fruits and it might be a relatively smooth fruit when single.

A couple other suggestions... is it possible to contact the source of the tomato? Also, I imagine that there are directions re: how to post pictures on here... in fact, I know there are as I've used them. Perhaps someone can post a link to that for you, otherwise, you can use the Search option to search for "photo attaching" or something similar.

**carolyn137** · May 21, 2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by shlacm

Another thought... correct me if I'm wrong (Carolyn & others! I'm extremely new to all of this!)... can't the weather cause non-hearts to appear heart-shaped at times? Also the ribbing could actually be from fused fruits and it might be a relatively smooth fruit when single.

A couple other suggestions... is it possible to contact the source of the tomato? Also, I imagine that there are directions re: how to post pictures on here... in fact, I know there are as I've used them. Perhaps someone can post a link to that for you, otherwise, you can use the Search option to search for "photo attaching" or something similar.

Only rarely will a non-heart show a slight taper at the blossom end and it's known it's weather related but not specifically what weather conditions can induce it. But what Charles has described sounds like a true heart shaped variety.

Seldom have I seed fused fruit with hearts, but the variety Russian #117 is a flat double heart and always has been so not a fused situation.

Actually I don't think I've ever seen a true fused heart.

Charles just indicated that he's going to try to trace that box of fruits back to Canada and see what he can find out.

mjc · May 21, 2011

The easiest way to add photos is to use some place like photbucket to host them. That way there aren't size limits and such imposed by the forum software (things like that would require cropping or scaling the picture to fit the forum...or compressing it to reduce the file size).

Then it is simply a matter of copying the link provided by photobucket and pasting into your forum post. PB makes it real easy by providing the links in three common formats, one of which is the standard used by most forum software, including the software that runs this forum.

May 20, 2011	#3
carolyn137 Moderator Emeritus Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Upstate NY, zone 4b/5a Posts: 21,169	http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/wiki/Piriform Above is a link to Tania's data base page for piriform which is a word that indicates pear shaped, as in bottom heavy. And you'll see that on that same page she also mentions several others that are pear shaped, some more pleated than others. There's no way to ID your tomato b'c once a label or tag or whatever, is separated from the actual plant or fruit there's no way to ID it. Johnny's Selected Seeds is in Maine and they offer a couple of piriform varieties and not being that far from Canada perhaps thats the source of seeds, just a mild suggestion. Heart varieties, as in Bull's Heart and maybe 200 other heart shaped varieties, have the opposite shape from a piriform in that piriforms are bottom heavy and heart shaped ones are top heavy tapering to a point at the bottom. Did you take some seeds out of the fruit you bought? __________________ Carolyn

May 21, 2011	#4
inthewinecountry Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2011 Location: Sonoma County, CA Posts: 5	good call Thank you Carolyn, Tatiana's web site is great and as I said on another post, it is amazing to see how people have different growing conditions for tomatoes where they are at. I can't imagine trying to grow tomatoes in BC Canada. Her web site was very helpful. Good call on suggesting the Piniform but I guess I need to be more specific, my fault. The tomato I found came to a point on its end. Setting it on its stem end, its form looked like a Hersheys kiss. And yes I saved some seed, hoping being hot house grown it will be true to parent. Thanks, Charles

May 21, 2011	#6
inthewinecountry Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2011 Location: Sonoma County, CA Posts: 5	thanks agian Carolyn, Thank you again. I see from the tatiana web site there are hundreds. Wish she had more photos of the different tomatoes listed. Of the few I did see, only one had faint ribbing. Well so little time and too many things to do. Got to finish up in the garden today or wife will kill me. I think I might try next to track down produce manager and ask who the vendor was who supplied the tomatoes. They might be able to get me the name of the grower in Canada. Charles

May 20, 2011	#1
inthewinecountry Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2011 Location: Sonoma County, CA Posts: 5	name that tomato Can someone help me in identifying a tomato? I don't know how to post pictures so can only describe it. Recently in my local grocery store I spied a box labeled heirloom tomatoes. Imagine my surprise when I saw they came from Canada! One in particular caught my eye. It was very red and shaped like a turban or Hershey's kiss and was very pleated. I since found this shape might be called bulls heart but I have grown bulls heart before and never seen one so ribbed. I found a similar one on Solana seeds web site called "red pear Franchi" but the one here is more heavily ribbed. Also looking on the net to see if the "Franchi" was it I found other sites showing pictures and again not looking so heavily pleated. Any suggestions? Charles

May 20, 2011	#2
habitat_gardener Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: California Central Valley Posts: 2,543	Also look under "piriform" and "fig." The description of Amy Goldman's Italian-American is pleated and bottom-heavy. I've been wanting to grow it for several years and still haven't gotten a round tuit.

May 21, 2011	#7
shlacm Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Central VA Posts: 436	Another thought... correct me if I'm wrong (Carolyn & others! I'm extremely new to all of this!)... can't the weather cause non-hearts to appear heart-shaped at times? Also the ribbing could actually be from fused fruits and it might be a relatively smooth fruit when single. A couple other suggestions... is it possible to contact the source of the tomato? Also, I imagine that there are directions re: how to post pictures on here... in fact, I know there are as I've used them. Perhaps someone can post a link to that for you, otherwise, you can use the Search option to search for "photo attaching" or something similar.

May 21, 2011	#9
mjc Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: WV Posts: 603	The easiest way to add photos is to use some place like photbucket to host them. That way there aren't size limits and such imposed by the forum software (things like that would require cropping or scaling the picture to fit the forum...or compressing it to reduce the file size). Then it is simply a matter of copying the link provided by photobucket and pasting into your forum post. PB makes it real easy by providing the links in three common formats, one of which is the standard used by most forum software, including the software that runs this forum.