Tomato
Solanum lycopersicum
A sprawling, brittle-stemmed annual with pinnate, sharply toothed leaves that give off a sharp resinous smell when brushed. Small yellow star-shaped flowers hang in short nodding clusters, followed by juicy berries that ripen from green through to red, orange or yellow. Grown in gardens and greenhouses everywhere, and in Britain it also appears self-sown on waste ground and riverbanks.
Not native and not persistent in Britain. A frost-tender annual of gardens, allotments and greenhouses that also occurs as a casual on tips, waste ground, shingle and river strandlines, most often below sewage outfalls where seed passes through undamaged. Killed by the first hard frost.
The ripe fruit is safe raw. Leaves, stems and unripe green fruit contain the glycoalkaloid tomatine and can upset the stomach in quantity, so green fruit is cooked rather than eaten off the plant. Self-sown plants often grow below sewage outfalls and on river strandlines; wash fruit from such places thoroughly or leave it.
Always use more than one reference to confirm a plant. You are responsible for what you choose to forage.
Fruit
Fleshy berries in short clusters off the main stem, each sitting behind a persistent star of green sepals that splay back but never wrap the fruit. Anything enclosed in a papery husk is not a tomato.
Leaves and smell
Leaves are pinnate with unequal, irregularly toothed leaflets and are covered in sticky glandular hairs. Brushing or crushing them releases the unmistakable pungent tomato smell; a similar-looking plant with green berries and no such smell is something else.
Flowers
Small, nodding, five-pointed yellow stars with the anthers fused into a central cone that the fruit later pushes out of. The yellow is the quickest check from a couple of metres away.
Growth habit
Weak, angular, hairy stems that sprawl or scramble rather than stand, rooting where they touch damp soil. Plants blacken and collapse with the first frost, so late fruit will not ripen outdoors.
Updated 2026-08-08T12:03:08.786Z · Part of the shared Foragers Log catalogue · Vegetable