New species of terrifying tomato appears to bleed
Australian bush tomato is less than appetizing
A growing Solanum ossicruentum tomato is covered in a spiny outer coating. These spikes help the tomato latch onto the fur of passing animals. Each fruit is roughly 1.5 to 2.5 centimeters (0.6 to 1 inch) wide (penny shown for size).
C.T. Martine et al / PhytoKeys 2016
A new Australian species of tomato belongs in a haunted house, not on a sandwich.
The species, Solanum ossicruentum, is a type of bush tomato from northern Australia. However, its fruit bears little resemblance to the cultivated cousins sold in grocery stores. These tomatoes are only a couple centimeters (about an inch) wide. And they grow within a shell of spikes. These spikes probably help the fruits latch onto the fur of passing mammals to spread the plant’s seeds elsewhere.
One brave researcher tasted an unripe fruit and deemed it salty. The bush tomato does not get more appetizing with time. Mature fruits harden into dry, bony nuggets. Its gruesome qualities earned the tomato its formal name, which was chosen with the help of 150 seventh-grade science students in Pennsylvania. They combined the Latin words for “bone” and “bloody” to get ossicruentum.
Researchers from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., described the plant May 3 in PhytoKeys. But local people in Australia already knew about the tomato. Some members of an indigenous group called the Walmajarri even eat the outside part of a related species of bush tomato (although not this bony-textured one).
