Do Tomatoes Grow on Trees?

When you look at a tomato, you may notice some similarities to other edible plants, such as apples. Both can start out green, turn red, and vary greatly in size from species to species, such as the crabapple and the cherry tomato. Both have stems at the top of the plant with a few leaves. Both plants can also be eaten as-is, can be skinned and eaten, and are popular ingredients when it comes to cooking. Because of all these similarities, this may lead one to wonder just whether tomatoes are a fruit or a vegetable. It also brings up the question of just how does a tomato grow? Do tomatoes grow on trees like apples? Do they grow on the ground like watermelon? Do they grow in bushes like strawberries? What about on vines like grapes? Just how do tomatoes grow?

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How Do Tomatoes Grow?: Do Tomatoes Grow on Trees?

Despite all the similarities that are shared between apples and tomatoes, they do not actually grow on trees. Tomatoes grow on vines very much like grapes do. When tomatoes are planted, a stick or a trellis (a framework similar to a grate or a fence) is placed next to the tomato plant for the vines to grow upward on. This provides the tomato plant with a way to support their thick vine as well as the weight of the tomatoes as they grow to be thick and juicy baseball-sized red balls full of flavor. Despite the tomato plant growing as a vine, there is one outlier out of all the different tomato species.

The Tomato vine

The tomato vine is exactly what it sounds like; a vine that produces tomatoes. The tomato vine has a thin stem and its upper branches and leaves need to be supported due to the lack of support that the stem and lower branches provide. When combined with the added weight of the tomatoes, the upper branches and the tomatoes need to be supported by a framework above for them to rest upon.

What Type of Plant is a Tomato?

The tomato has been the subject of much debate between many people for hundreds of years as they continue to argue about and puzzle over just what type of plant the tomato is. People often find themselves torn on whether or not a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable.

While people argue over whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable, they fail to realize that the tomato is actually classified as a _berry_, making it a fruit. It is classified as a berry because it is a fleshy fruit that started as a flower blossom and has only one ovary (this is the female reproductive part of a flower that develops into a fruit or berry).

The argument that a tomato is a vegetable plant has been around for hundreds of years because of the flavor of the tomato and because of how the tomato is used in cooking. The tomato, when compared to other fruits, has an extremely low amount of natural sugars. This leads to it being a savory plant, rather than a sweet fruit. Because it is savory, it is used in cooking meals, rather than sweets and desserts. This is how the culinary industry has made its case for the tomato plant to be classified as a vegetable instead of the correct classification of the tomato being a fruit.

The debate on what type of plant the tomato is reached it’s peak in the early 1890’s in the United State’s Supreme Court. During this time, taxes were placed on vegetables that were being shipped in from other locations and countries, but these taxes were not being placed on fruits. The outcome of this case was reached when the Supreme Court declared they would be taxed as vegetables due to their use in being used and cooked like other vegetables. This became irrelevant later on and tomatoes are still classified as fruits.