Solanum lycopersicum

Tomato

Family: Solanaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Tomato is a naturalized annual found in the Great Valley, San Francisco Bay Area, and southern California coastal regions in disturbed areas, abandoned fields, and roadsides at elevations up to 1,630 meters. Flowering from summer to fall, this plant produces yellow flowers in small raceme-like clusters with deeply lobed, rotate petals. Growing with fleshy, erect or reclining stems that are variably hairy and often aromatic, it can reach 20 to 50 centimeters tall. Its large compound leaves are 10 to 20 centimeters long, composed of a mixture of large and small leaflets arranged in an odd-pinnate pattern. The fruit develops as a spheric to ellipsoid berry 2 to 12 centimeters in diameter, ripening from green to red, yellow, or purple.

Habitat: Disturbed areas, abandoned fields, stream sediments, roadsides, generally not persisting

Bloom period: Summer-fall

Elevation: <= 1630 m

Bioregions: GV, SnFrB, SCo

California counties: Santa Cruz, Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Kern, San Bernardino, Riverside, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Butte, Napa, Alameda, San Mateo, San Diego, Yolo, Monterey

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.