Tomato
Solanum lycopersicum · Nightshade family
Plant portrait
Divided leaves, yellow flowers and then fleshy fruits. Tomato varieties differ widely in shape, colour and growth habit.
Harvested part
The fruits.
What to watch for
Look for flower clusters, followed by small fruits that swell. To judge a harvest, check the colour expected for your variety and the firmness of the fruit; the model is an illustration.
Growth stages of the tomato
Plotilo illustrates the tomato in 7 stages in 3D: seed, small sprout, young plant, growing, flowering, developing fruit and harvest. The models show typical shapes; they do not predict how long growth takes.
- Seed
Starting from a seed. It is shown on the surface to make it visible in this illustration.
- Small sprout
A short first stem and its first small leaves emerge.
- Young plant
The young plant carries more leaves and starts to take its own shape.
- Growing
Leaves and stems develop. Their shape depends on the species.
- Flowering
Flowers are shown before fruit begins to form.
- Developing fruit
Fruit begins to develop on the plant.
- Harvest
An illustration of the harvested part. Roots are made visible for clarity; this image does not confirm actual maturity.
Same botanical family
Same botanical family as the tomato (the nightshade family): the pepper, the aubergine, the litchi tomato, the chilli pepper, the pepino, the potato and 1 more plants from the catalogue. Gardeners usually avoid growing the same family in the same spot several years in a row: that is the idea behind crop rotation.